Over Six Million Visited China’s Hainan Province During Spring Festival
Lin Chunting
DATE:  Jan 30 2023
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Over Six Million Visited China’s Hainan Province During Spring Festival Over Six Million Visited China’s Hainan Province During Spring Festival

(Yicai Global) Jan. 30 -- More than six million tourists visited China’s getaway island province of Hainan over the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, as eased Covid-19 measures fueled the recovery of tourism in the country.

Some 6.4 million tourists traveled to the southern province between Jan. 21 and 27, an 18.2 percent gain on a year earlier and a five-year high, according to data released by Hainan’s tourism department. Revenue from tourism jumped 23.5 percent to CNY9.3 billion (USD1.4 billion).

Travel bookings for Hainan over the holiday period jumped 16 percent from the comparable time a last year, with ticket sales for tourist attractions surging 34 percent.

Sanya, a popular tourist destination in Hainan, was the most crowded city in China during the Chinese New Year holiday. Four tourist attractions affiliated to Sanya Tourism and Culture Investment Group welcomed a total of 46,000 visitors on Jan. 22, the first day of the lunar new year, almost tripling from a year ago, Chairman Zheng Conghui told Yicai Global.

Higher visitor numbers also speeded up the recovery of other related sectors. Bookings for rental cars, yachts, and other tourist-related services in Sanya soared more than 200 percent during the holiday from a year earlier.

An employee at a four-star hotel in Sanya told Yicai Global that it has been fully booked since the end of December, and hopefully until March.

A restaurant worker at the Hilton Hainan Ocean Flower Island, a resort built on an artificial island, said diners have needed to line up since the holiday began, for the first time since it opened on Jan. 1, 2021.

Hainan will remain a popular destination until the end of February or March, even though the Chinese New Year holiday has ended, a source in Hainan’s tourism sector told Yicai Global.

Revenue from duty-free shops on the island also soared. Twelve offshore duty-free stores had CNY2.6 billion (USD385.1 million) in revenue over the seven days, up almost 21 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Hainan’s commerce department.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione

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Keywords:   Hainan