Interview: Developing Hainan into tourism hub

Haikou Qilou Snack Street serves all kinds of well-known local snacks common to Hainan. [Photo by Huang Yiming/China Daily]

Do you have a figure on how much you are spending on advertising?

The province spends around $2 million a year on the international market.

Have you been successful in attracting international tourists who visit other cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an?

We are working with international travel agencies to include Hainan in packages that cover popular cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an.

What are the challenges of building Hainan into an international tourism island?

We lack tourism professionals who can speak foreign languages. The wage level in Hainan is low. For people from the inland, working in a hotel in Hainan is not as attractive as working in a hotel in Beijing and Shanghai. To solve the problem, we have been working with local universities’ tourism-related majors in the recent years to foster local professionals. After graduation, their advantage will not only be their skills, but also the understanding of local culture.

The population of Hainan is quite separated from the mainland. Does that make Hainan’s culture unique?

Yes, the culture of Hainan is well-mixed and interesting. The Li, Miao and Hui people are the top three minorities living in Hainan. Li people are the original inhabitants of Hainan. There are also migrant Han people who have lived here for centuries as well as those who just settled down.

What about the number of tourists coming to Hainan? Last year, we received 50.2 million tourists in total, and 660,000 of them were international tourists. In 2007, we received around one million international tourists and 20 million Chinese tourists. The domestic market is increasing rapidly but the international market is not growing accordingly. So promoting inbound tourism is not easy for us, but we need to get there.