Hainan tourism consumption gains leapfrog growth

South China's Hainan Province has been stepping up its efforts in expanding the scale and quality of cultural and tourism industry, continuously driving tourism consumption.

The province's total revenue of the tourism sector grew from 95.016 billion yuan (about 13.302 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018 to 204.014 billion yuan in 2024, doubling in scale. Meanwhile, tourism's overall contribution to GDP has risen significantly, climbing from 27.3 percent in 2018 to 33.4 percent in 2024.

"Hainan has been providing more abundant premium tourism products, with duty-free shopping, aerospace study tours, wellness vacations, and cultural performances flourishing as distinctive sectors, meeting tourists' diverse and quality consumption needs," said Chen Tiejun, director of Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism and Culture, Radio, Television and Sports.

Under the policy of Free Trade Port, Hainan's inbound tourism has seen drastic changes.

"With continued release of policy dividends, Hainan's global connectivity is significantly enhanced, along with optimized market structure, and steadily rising consumption quality," said Chen.

As of November 2025, the province had opened a total of 82 overseas passenger routes, linking key cities in Russian-speaking regions, main customer source cities in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions. Five long-haul routes to Europe and America were launched as well.

"In the years to come, Hainan will further expand long-haul international routes to Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, and build a global tourism promotion system. It will also develop joint 'multi-destination' travel routes with provinces and cities in Chinese mainland as well as Hong Kong and Macao. Leveraging duty-free policies, Hainan will create international products such as high-end shopping, cruise tourism, and health care and wellness to attract more inbound tourists to visit and vacation here," Chen said.

Hainan tourism consumption gains leapfrog growth

Hainan tourism consumption gains leapfrog growth

The Caixin Robotics Industry Index (RII) was released at the Inaugural AI High-Quality Development Conference held in Hangzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, on Saturday.

The index, a comprehensive benchmark dedicated to the robotics sector, reached 125.1 last month, up nearly 25 percent from two years ago.

According to Caixin, Beijing topped the city robotics industry index, which measures the share of robotics-related industrial inputs in a city's overall economic inputs.

Nanjing, Xi'an, Hangzhou, and Suzhou also ranked among the top five.

In 2025, China produced more than 770,000 industrial robots and over 18 million service robots, with output expected to continue rising in the years ahead.

The climb of the index comes as robotics has been elevated in China's national planning, underscoring the sector's growing role in industrial transformation and future economic strategy, according to Wang Zhe, senior economist with the Caixin Insight, the compiler of the index.

"The robotics industry was mentioned in both the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), and the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) . Over the past five years, this industry has fully developed. From these two plans, we can see that the position of this sector has been upgraded. Five years ago, robots were just part of manufacturing upgrades, but now and looking ahead to the next five years, robotics, alongside many other emerging industries, is poised to grow into a pillar industry for China," said Wang.

Climb of robot industry index point to industrial growth