Sanya applies for being stopover of Volvo Ocean Race

Sanya, a tropical city of South China's island province of Hainan, will apply for being the host city of the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015 and 2017-2018, the organizing committee said on Tuesday.

According to the organizing committee, dozens of cities from all over the world are now applying for being the stopover of the 12th Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015, which will start sailing from Alicante, a port city in southeast part of Spain, at some time of the latter half of the year 2014. The final selected cities will be announced by the organizing committee at the beginning of 2013.

Sanya is the only stopover in Asia during the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 and also the second city in China to become the stopover of the race following Qingdao, which was the stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009.

Nearly 15,000 tourists came to Sanya for the race during that period, bringing a surge of the number of the tourists, according to the organizing committee.

About 2.9 million tourists visited 10 race villages of the 10 stopovers in the world during the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012, according to the report recently released by the Headquarter of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Founded in 1973, the Volvo Ocean Race, crossing four oceans and five continents, is the world's premier offshore race.