Phecda Global Insights | Urban development
What Florida’s experience reveals about Hainan’s ambitions, and the conditions that turn a resort economy into a lasting business centre.
Debbie Bin Deng, 8th September 2026
Photo:Yalong Wan, Sanya (Luna Wang, August 2026)
Ocean, beaches, luxury hotels, VAT-free shopping and second homes give people compelling reasons to visit Sanya and spend. Hainan, the southest island province that encompassess the city of Sanya, now has a bigger ambition: to attract businesses and skilled workers to settle and thrive. Miami's extraordinary rise offer an instructive comparison: Its international connections have helped transform a coastal destination into a broader commercial hub, while its success reveals the pressures that prosperity can bring.
In contrast to Sanya, Miami sits within a much larger metropolitan economy in Florida. Palm Beach, home to Mar-a-Lago, is a separate location within South Florida. Neither city represents the full economic diversity of its surrounding region. The question we focused on is how tourism, migration, investment and public policy interact across these different scales.
Miami’s growth as a tourist destination, a magnet for wealth and a financial centre involved overlapping developments. Migration shaped its international role long before the latest wave of corporate arrivals. Cuban migration after 1959, followed by arrivals from across Latin America, brought businesses and cross-border networks that helped establish Miami as a commercial gateway between the United States and Latin America.
More recently, major companies have chosen the Miami area for their headquarters. Citadel announced its move to Miami in 2022, while Palantir’s annual report filed in February 2026 lists its principal executive offices in nearby Aventura, within the Miami metropolitan area. These decisions signal corporate commitment, with wider economic benefits depending on how many jobs, investment activities and supplier relationships follow.
Local authorities are determined to attract businesses. Miami-Dade’s Relocation and Expansion Incentives Program offers support to companies that meet specific job creation and wage requirements. Florida’s absense of a state personal income tax adds to this appeal, allowing residents to participate in the US economy without paying the additional layer of income tax.
Since President Trump's return to the White House, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach has become a flocal point for presidential activitiy and gatherings of business and political leaders. Proximity to political power may open doors and create opportunities for influence, but its contribution to the region’s long-term productivity is harder to establish.
Hainan is pursuing a more explicit programme of institutional reform. Island-wide special customs operations began on 18 December 2025, expanding zero-tariff arrangements and reshaping how goods move between Hainan, oversea markets and mainland China. These changes can offer eligible businesses significant advantages, although their value depends on each firm’s activities and trading relationships.
Hainan’s personal income-tax incentives are more conditional than Florida’s. Under a policy extended through the end of 2027, eligible high-end and urgently needed talent can receive relief on the portion of tax on qualifying income that exceeds an effective rate of 15%. The benefit depends on who qualifies and which income is covered; it does not apply to everyone who moves to the island.
Sanya is also building an economic foundation beyond tourism. Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City supports seed breeding and deep-sea research, bringing together research institutions, specialist infrastructure and commercial activity in defined fields. These strengths provide a concrete starting point for economic diversification.
The next challenge is to turn today's initiatives into a foundation for sustained economic growth.
Table 1. Comparison of developement routes: Miami (Florida) vs Sanya (Hainan)
Sanya’s 2025 statistics reveal an uneven pattern of growth. The floor area of newly built property sold rose by 25.2%, while real estate development investment fell by 0.7%. Total retail sales increased by 12.7%, but offshore duty-free sales declined by 4.4%. Stronger performance in some markets have yet to establish growth across the board.
As Sanya’s economy diversifies, the land use planning will need to respond to changing demand. Tourism supports hotels, leisure facilities and short stays. A broader employment base could generate demand for long-term rental housing, offices, laboratories, logistics facilities and neighbourhood services. The scale and location of these opportunities will depend on which businesses take root.
Forecasting land use and transport demand, and planning for both together, are therefore central to the investment case. Employment sites, housing and essential services need to be planned together and connected effectively. A seemingly affordable home far from work can impose substantial commuting costs. Delays in infrastructure provision can leave new businesses facing unreliable access and services when they can least afford disruption.
Real estate can support this transition by providing suitable space at affordable costs. Its long-term performance, in turn, depends on an economy that generates enough income to sustain occupancy, maintenance and reinvestment.
Miami-Dade’s housing department identifies a continuing shortage of affordable housing for low-income and cost-burdened residents. This places an important qualification on the region’s investment appeal: prosperity at the top of the market does not establish that the wider workforce can afford to live locally.
When housing demand outpaces suitable supply, employers can face higher wage demands, longer commutes and recruitment difficulties. Hainan should therefore assess the cost of development against local earnings as well as incoming purchasing power. Housing delivery, transport access and public services belong in the same growth strategy.
A company can change its registered address much faster than a region can develop a specialist labour market. Experienced teams, research partnerships and reliable suppliers take time to build. Employers also benefit from having other employers nearby: workers are more willing to relocate when a city offers several possible career paths.
For Hainan, the priority should be to deepen expertise in fields where it already has a credible foundation. Yazhou Bay provides one starting point. Training, research collaboration and opportunities for local graduates can strengthen it. A wider economy is more likely to emerge from connected capabilities than from a long list of unrelated sectors competing for subsidies.
Miami-Dade’s Sea Level Rise Strategy explicitly addresses the costs of coastal exposure and alternative adaptation pathways. Its relevance extends beyond environmental planning: flood protection, infrastructure reliability and the cost of adaptation affect the economics of occupying and owning property.
Hainan needs to assess its own exposure to typhoons, coastal flooding and infrastructure disruption. Site selection, drainage, building design and reliable power and water supplies should inform development decisions from the outset. Financial appraisals should account for maintenance, insurance costs and coverage, and potential disruption throughout an asset’s life. An attractive purchase price can conceal substantial long-term costs if these risks are overlooked.
Visitor spending helps measure tourism performance. Tracking a broader economic transition requires evidence of lasting business activity, career opportunities and improving living standards. The following indicators offer a framework for assessing that transition.
Are companies establishing real operations?
Evidence to track: Local employment, payroll, occupied premises and repeat procurement
Are skilled people building careers?
Evidence to track: Graduate retention, specialist vacancies and employee tenure
Is the economy becoming more diverse?
Evidence to track: Employment and value added across sectors, using consistent definitions
Is property demand supported by activity?
Evidence to track: Occupancy, lease renewals and rents relative to occupier incomes
Can residents share in growth?
Evidence to track: Housing costs relative to earnings and access to jobs and services
Can development withstand disruption?
Evidence to track: Infrastructure reliability, flood exposure and funded adaptation plans
These indicators should be tracked over several years and at comparable geographic scales. Sanya’s performance cannot represent all of Hainan, just as developments in Palm Beach cannot automatically be attributed to the City of Miami. Comparisons must also account for changes in statistical definitions and administrative boundaries.
Hainan’s economy may ultimately look quite different from Florida’s, shaped by its own institutions, industries and market connections. Miami offers lessons in how an attractive destination can become a centre for business—and how rising costs can erode the advantages that drew people there.
For Hainan, the clearest sign of progress would be a growing base of employers that renew leases, reinvest and recruit locally because the island meets their business needs. Those repeated commitments would show that a place people want to visit is becoming a place where they can build businesses and careers.
[1] Greater Miami & Miami Beach (2025, 12 August). Miami’s Hispanic Heritage.
https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/miami-s-hispanic-heritage
[2] Citadel (n.d.). Miami: Global Headquarters.
https://www.citadel.com/who-we-are/office-locations/miami/
[3] Palantir Technologies Inc. (2026, 17 February). Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025.
[4] The Economist (2026, 31 August). The extraordinary rise of Miami’s economy.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/08/31/the-extraordinary-rise-of-miamis-economy
[5] Florida Department of Revenue (n.d.). Do I have to file a personal income tax return in Florida?
https://floridarevenue.com/faq/Pages/FAQDetails.aspx?FAQID=1466
[6] Miami-Dade County (n.d.). Business Incentives: Relocation and Expansion Incentives Program (REIP).
https://www.miamidade.gov/global/service.page?Mduid_service=ser1572381847303614
[7] Reuters (2026, 17 February). Goldman, Nasdaq CEOs to headline Mar-a-Lago crypto “forum” hosted by Don Jr. and Eric Trump.
[8] Xinhua, via the State Council of the People’s Republic of China (2025, 18 December). China turns Hainan Island into special customs supervision zone in opening-up drive.
https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202512/18/content_WS6943ac7dc6d00ca5f9a082cb.html
[9] Hainan Provincial Government (2025, 30 June). Maximum individual income tax of 15% for eligible talent.
https://en.hainan.gov.cn/englishsite/WEditor/202506/11b9f27604294175b9744c72c2e5b5b4.shtml
[10] Xinhua, via the State Council of the People’s Republic of China (2023, 1 July). Scientific innovation widens development path of China’s resort island.
https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202307/01/content_WS649f6b2ac6d0868f4e8dd666.html
[11] Sanya Municipal Bureau of Statistics (2026, 9 March). 2025年三亚市国民经济和社会发展统计公报 [Statistical Communiqué of Sanya Municipality on the 2025 National Economic and Social Development], p. 8.
https://tjj.sanya.gov.cn/tjjsite/tzgg/202603/e5cddcdc259b454887ac3d3713e8db42.shtml
[12] Miami-Dade County, Department of Housing and Community Development (2025). Business Plan, FY 2025–26.
[13] Miami-Dade County (n.d.). Sea Level Rise Strategy.
https://www.miamidade.gov/global/environment/resilience/sea-level-rise-strategy.page
Photo: Sanya Underwater (Luna Wang, August 2026)
Dr Debbie Bin Deng has a background in urban planning, transport and land-use modelling, and major infrastructure projects in the UK and China. Her interests include planning law, real estate and regional development, with a focus on how public policy shapes investment.
