HAIKOU /China/, August 6. /TASS/. Over 14.11 million tourists visited Haikou (the administrative center of South China's Hainan Province) in the first half of 2024, up 6.05% compared to the same period in 2023, Haikou Daily reported.

According to the paper, 14.04 million of the tourists are from China, which is an increase of 5.68% year-on-year.

In January-June, visitors to the city spent 22.9 billion yuan (about $3.21 billion at the current exchange rate), up 10.03% from the same period in 2023, the newspaper noted.

Haikou is actively promoting the development of high-quality tourism services and increasing the city's attractiveness to travelers, the paper wrote. Authorities are holding various events and developing new tourist routes and infrastructure.

As an example, in June, Haikou hosted a series of events to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Jie). June alone saw 493.9 thousand tourists visit the city, which is 14.7% more than in the same month the previous year.

By 2025, the authorities intend to turn Hainan into an "international tourism and consumption center". The Chinese island is often called "Eastern Hawaii" with its unique natural landscapes, dense rainforests and great climate, a developed network of hotels, sandy beaches and a coastline of more than 1.9 thousand kilometers attract guests from the most remote points of the world. In 2023, over 90 million Chinese and foreign tourists came to Hainan, an increase by 49.9% compared to 2022.