Guangxi, China -

arst, shmarst. The best landscapes in and around Guilin and Yangshuo are made of rock, but they aren't the camel hump, mini mountains that make the area famous. No, these ones are manmade: the sculptures that cover the grounds of Yuzi Paradise. The first one appears at the main gate, with the meeting of Great White North and Deep Chinese South in an Inuit-esque sculpture of a bird about to swallow a fish, bringing to mind the cormorant fishing that is one of the region's most popular tourist activities.

But Yuzi Paradise – and its Hotel of Modern Art, or HOMA – hopes to attract visitors interested in more than simply watching choked birds not swallow fish for the benefit of their keepers. "This is a small hotel with a big back garden," says Tony Huang, a consultant working on the hotel project. "We are trying to create a new vacationing lifestyle."

In 1992, Taiwanese businessman Tsao Rhy-Chang found the land that has now become Yuzi Paradise and began turning it into a sculpture park inspired by Gustav Park in Oslo and Hakone Sculpture Park in Hakone, Japan. Today, thanks to Tsao's commitment to the arts, there are over 200 sculptures lining the grounds, as well as a massive complex of state-of-the-art studios for virtually all forms of visual art.

Tsao's patronage of the arts, and sculpture in particular, is rooted in his impressions of the past based on the works of art that survive from centuries – and millennia – ago. "He hopes that the legacy we leave for people hundreds and thousands of years from now won't be limited to pollution," says Cai, co-organiser of the park's last Sculpture Symposium. "And he believes that sculpture is the form of art that can last the longest."

Tsao first put this thinking into practice at Jinbaoshan Cemetery outside Taipei, where he has been acquiring more and more land, so that the cemetery now covers 800 acres. He began to put sculptures inside and, thanks to the combination of art and park space, Jinbaoshan is now considered Taiwan's ultimate ultimate destination. Pop star Deng Lijun (Theresa Teng), for one, is buried there. Meanwhile, Tsao's other property, Shanghai's Yu Yuan, focuses on the living: wedding photography shops have opened up and, according to Huang, are booming.

For now, ChinBaoSan, the Taiwanese parent company, is focused on Yuzi Paradise. Tsao is aware of and undaunted by the grandiosity of this project. Not only has he dubbed himself the Don Quixote of China, but yuzi means 'fool' and it was on April Fool's Day 2003 that, after seven years of design and construction, Yuzi Paradise opened its doors to the public.

"Actually, it was difficult to get the name registered," recalls Michelle Lai, manager of ChinBaoSan's culture department. The authorities, she said, didn't believe that they actually wanted to call the place Fool's Paradise. "The first time, the local government bureau added a character, changing the meaning to 'amusement park'. We had to reapply to get the name we wanted."

The sleek buildings (all designed by Tsao) sharing the grounds are works of art too. There are the office buildings at the entrance, a ski-chalet style lodge, housing and studios for visiting artists, camping grounds, a small gallery, a dining room and, of course, HOMA, set to officially open to the public this year on, you guessed it, April 1.

The acronym may not inspire grand visions of hotel-resort paradise, but there's more to HOMA than a clunky name. After all, it is soon to be officially given a four-star rating, and in stark contrast to the flamboyance of the founder's nearby mansion, has been designed in a tastefully modern style. The hotel hopes to take advantage of the rising desire for active vacation experiences that don't sacrifice the comforts of home.

Visitors to the region generally come to ride the Li River cruise, hop off the boat, do some shopping along Yangshuo's pier and head to their next destination. The idea behind HOMA is to get them to stick around for extended stays. The hotel offers tour packages for its guests, including trips into Guilin and Yangshuo, both 30 kilometres from the site; Li River cruises; and tickets to Liu San Jie, Zhang Yimou's extravagant and perennially-packed Las Vegas-meets-CCTV variety show interpretation of the tale of a minority woman's struggle against an oppressive local landlord. The sculpture garden, which is already drawing a regular stream of tour groups, is one way of keeping them on site. Bike rentals, already a mainstay of the region's tourist economy, are also available, allowing hotel guests to cruise through the grounds at their own pace. More adventurous souls can head to the adjoining plot of land, over ten times the size of the sculpture park, and cycle along dirt roads through farmers' fields, forests and, of course, karst mountain landscapes.

Construction is currently underway in a series of caves on the adjoining property. Originally, keeping in line with Tsao's commitment to sculpture, the cavern system was to be transformed into a new Dunhuang. Sculptures of the people and events of the past century carved into the walls would, like its northwestern counterpart, provide clues to future generations of the life and times of its creators. The project was scrapped after it was discovered that large-scale sculpting wouldn't be feasible inside the caverns. But they will not follow the Reed Flute Cave model (a mandatory tour group destination outside Guilin featuring neon-lit stalagmites and stalactites said to resemble historical, biblical and mythical figures). Instead, the company hopes to turn the caves into a Zen-style retreat and add simple spa facilities where guests can escape the heat in the naturally cool confines of the cavern system.

There's a clue as to what might have been in the master bedroom of the Memorial Hall (which is actually the home Tsao built for himself). Life-sized wooden nymphs and human figures jump out of the boudoir's walls in a Baroque blast. Tsao has barely lived in the 12-bedroom sloping cylindrical structure (house is an inadequate word if ever there was one), opting instead to pass it on to his son, Chao Guangcan, who has also taken the reins of HOMA. However, "this house isn't really my style," says the beneficiary, choosing instead to live closer to the hotel. The Hall, which calls to mind the spiralling interior of New York's Guggenheim Museum, not only features an extensive art collection, but also a health club, spa and, natch, state of the art karaoke facilities. For the modest sum of RMB 80,000 the 'villa', as it is so inadequately referred to, can be rented for a night, complete with private chef and exclusive use of all the palace's banquet halls and amenities; discounts are available for multiple-night stays.

The grand scale of Yuzi Paradise is impressive enough, but the most striking thing about the operation is its founder's commitment to the arts. What initially seemed to be a typical press junket to a new hotel became something quite different. Entering the sculpture studio, I found myself face to face with eight sculptors from around the world, brought to Yuzi Paradise for the 11th International Sculpture Symposium. Begun in 1997, the Symposium brings some of the brightest names in sculpture from around the world to the park to create new works not only for Yuzi Paradise, but also for ChinBaoSan's other properties.

"This is a real paradise for sculptors," says a beaming Georghi Filin, a Bulgarian sculptor at his second Symposium in four years. With an equal focus on artists, connoisseurs, tourists and corporate clients – who can look forward to large meeting spaces, a multimedia centre, in-room broadband access and more – this is definitely a paradise for more than fools.