More Tourists Flock to HaikouThis capital of southernmost China's island province of Hainan expects to have hosted 1.55 million domestic and overseas tourists in the first half of this year.According to a local official, this figure is 19.7 percent up over the same period last year, as Haikou raked in about 1.29 billion yuan (about 156 million U.S. dollars) in earnings from tourism in January-June, accounting for 19 percent of the city's gross domestic product. Haikou, on the northern tip of the island, is some 35 km away from the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong Province. The promising tourism prospects have been attributed to the fact that in the past few years, Haikou has invested more on improving urban transportation and other infrastructure, and building more tourism facilities. It has also been working hard to become an international tourism city. For instance, the local Meilan International Airport, built at an expense of 2.4 billion yuan (about 289 million dollars), has been in service since May 1999. Visitors to this southernmost province mainly come by plane, but construction of a railway tunnel that will link Hainan with Guangdong is underway. The project will be completed and put into use next year at a cost of more than four billion yuan (about 482 million dollars), local sources claim. |
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