China’s southern holiday hotspot Hainan Island welcomed more than 53 million tourists in 2015, up 11.4% from the previous year according to just released data from the provincial tourism development commission.
It generated 57.25 billion yuan ($8.79 billion) in tourism revenue, which is an increase of 13% and officials expect that to rise to 65 billion yuan by the end of this year.
The island has long been marketed as the ‘Hawaii of China’ but this has not yet translated into similar growth of international visitors.
The commission has targeted just 640,000 tourists from overseas this year.
Under its latest five-year plan for tourism, it forecasts 80 million tourists a year and 100 billion yuan in revenue by 2020.
