South China’s Hainan Province is gearing up for further opening-up, with new tourism regulations set to take effect on Monday. A Chinese expert said this sends a clear signal that China will continue to firmly promote high-level opening-up, with Hainan poised to become a key gateway.
The introduction of the regulations will help further expand the opening of the tourism consumption sector, promote the development of new business formats, enhance the quality of tourism services, unleash consumption potential, and provide a solid legal guarantee for building Hainan into an internationally influential tourism consumption center, according to an article published on the official website of the Hainan Provincial government.
The regulations contain a dedicated chapter on “tourism opening and internationalization,” eyeing the goal of building an international tourism consumption center and taking the lead in implementing high-standard opening-up policies in the tourism sector, said the article.
These include gradually relaxing or removing restrictions on foreign investment in the tourism industry, allowing qualified joint venture travel agencies and wholly foreign-owned enterprises to operate outbound tourism services (excluding Taiwan region), implementing more open and convenient duty-free shopping policies for departing passengers, promoting the construction of cruise home ports and the development of international cruise routes while simplifying yacht entry procedures, implementing broader visa-free entry policies for tourism in line with national regulations, and granting visa-free entry for tourism to qualified foreigners.
The new regulations came ahead of the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP)’s official launch of island-wide independent customs operations on December 18, which will be a milestone in the opening-up drive of the world’s second-largest economy despite rising protectionism worldwide. according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Commenting on the significance of the new tourism regulations to regional development and opening-up, Yu Tao, director of the Research Center for Public Diplomacy and Hainan Openness at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times on Sunday that the new regulations are specifically granted to Hainan for the FTP.
“Developing tourism regulations on this legal foundation is significant for creating a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized,” said the expert.
Yu said that the new regulations provide institutional guarantees for Hainan’s tourism industry and inject strong momentum into the development of an international tourism consumption center. “They also send a clear signal that China will continue to firmly advance high-level opening-up, with Hainan as a key gateway for this new era of openness,” he said.
Hainan has ramped up efforts for becoming an important destination for domestic and foreign tourists. In 2024, Hainan received more than 97.2 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent, and total tourism spending exceeded 204 billion yuan ($28.83 billion), up 12.5 percent year-on-year.
Under its three-year action plan to promote the high-quality development of its tourism industry, Hainan aims to receive 110 million visits by domestic and international tourists by 2026, generate total tourism revenue of 245 billion yuan, and ensure the tourism sector’s value-added accounts for more than 12 percent of GDP.
While China is a major goods trader, it still has shortcomings in services trade, Yu said, noting that tourism, as a vital component of services trade, serves as an essential driver of innovation. “Implementation of the regulations will help upgrade the services industry, optimize the trade structure, and raise the level of services trade,” he noted.
A wide range of sub-sectors across the tourism industry chain are also expected to benefit, including hospitality, duty-free retail and shopping, the cruise economy, and cross-border services, said the expert, indicating a further strengthening of Hainan’s international tourism consumption center and the overall development of the FTP.