1

It's very busy and prices go way up. I was there last year right after CNY and locals were still talking about it. Should clarify that it was more of a problem in Sanya (south) than in Haikou (north.)

There also were national (Chinese) TV news reports of price gouging for seafood, in particular for lobster, during CNY. It was a big enough deal to put Sanya in the headlines and trigger some sort of an attempt at a police crackdown on dishonest vendors to try to protect the interests of tourists and repair Sanya's tarnished image.

Sanya has lots of "da pai dang" 大排挡 type eateries in which you first select your seafood outside where the live tanks are placed, and then it's cooked at a kitchen inside. The scam occurred at the buying end of the process, reportedly often involving inaccurate scales and short weights.

As you may know, Sanya gets lots and lots of domestic guests at Chinese New Year from China's cold northeast as well as lots of visitors from Russia in search of sunshine and pleasant weather conditions.

Demand for everything, from meals to rooms, temporarily exceeds supply. Prices respond to that combination as you would expect. The cost problem is more acute at the moderate and upper end of the scale. You might still be able to "fly under the radar" and find some good value at the lower end. Not sure.

2

it's dead. that's what's happ'nin. i cycled around the island year before last,
then some of the interior last year. (spent very little time in sanya)

in the smaller towns and villages, most everything is closed....shops, restaurants,
some guesthouses. only thing open will be convenience stores, so lunch
will often be a bag of cookies. if lucky, they'll offer you hot water so you
can make some instant noodles. the guesthouses that are open will have
doubled the rates for the holidays. a few restaurants will open in the evenings,
but choice will be very limited, and aren't interested in feeding a solo trav'ler.

if you can deal with that, the good news is that few people are on the roads,
nice if you're cycling.

the bad news is that guesthouse noise will be worse than ever. the chinese
staying there either couldn't make it home, or have no home to go to. nothing
to do, so are constantly drunk and annoyingly loud.