Hainan registers record flow of foreign visitors

International arrivals and departures to and from China's Hainan province in 2025 had reached over 1.46 million as of Monday, a 16 percent increase on the previous 2019 record, immigration authorities said Tuesday.

Wang Haixing, director of the Haikou General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection, said the surge is due to the island province's expanding visa-free policies, a key feature of the Hainan Free Trade Port's push for greater openness.

Visa-free entries now account for 90 percent of all foreign arrivals in Hainan, while foreign nationals constituted 54 percent of all inbound and outbound travelers at the province's ports this year, ranking Hainan among the country's top performers on both indicators.

The island now grants visa-free access to visitors from 86 countries for purposes including tourism, business, family visits, medical treatment, exhibitions and sports events. Additional policies, such as a 144-hour visa waiver for foreign tour groups from Hong Kong and Macao, a 15-day exemption for cruise passengers, and a 240-hour transit visa waiver, have further streamlined entry.

To handle the growing passenger flow, Hainan has significantly upgraded its port infrastructure. The number of immigration inspection lanes has been expanded to 98, while the province's airports now host 92 international passenger air routes, connecting to over 30 countries and regions with an average of 80 daily flights, data showed.

This expansion has supported a dramatic recovery in passenger volume, which grew from 780,000 in 2023 to 2.7 million this year — an average annual increase of over 85 percent.

Concurrently, Hainan has implemented measures to accelerate clearance times. Processing for visas at ports has been reduced by nearly 30 minutes, while overall passenger clearance is 30 percent faster. For ships and aircraft, optimized procedures including pre-clearance and onboard inspection have cut wait times, boosting transport efficiency by 20 percent, said Wang.

These reforms have saved businesses an estimated 12,000 hours in clearance time and about 250 million yuan ($35 million) in operational costs, according to immigration officials.