Duty-free shop in S China's Hainan sees droves of tourists, buzzing with activity

Thanks to various promotional activities, the Haikou International Duty Free City in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province has been packed with tourists.

Tourists shop at a duty-free shopping complex in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, July 12, 2023. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)

To attract children during the summer vacation, the shopping mall organized a paper folding exhibition in the atrium on the first floor. “Not only do children love the exhibition, adults like me find it quite appealing to go shopping while enjoying the exhibition,” said Yang, who came here with her children.

The shopping mall, which has brought together over 800 brands since its opening in last October, incorporates many cutting-edge technologies to improve the shopping experience, such as virtual makeovers, customized fragrances, contactless skin testing and an AR navigation system.

As the second Hainan International Offshore Duty-Free Shopping Festival is in full swing, many cities across Hainan such as Haikou, Sanya, Wanning, Qionghai have launched online and offline sales promotions.

"Consumers can get a 20 percent discount if they buy two fragrance or makeup products, and a 25 percent discount if they buy three," said Du from central China's Hunan Province, with her arms full of packets and bags of items she had just bought.

Since the beginning of this year, Hainan province has introduced various measures to boost consumption, including issuing nearly 200 million yuan ($27.44 million) in consumption vouchers. Data released by the Hainan Provincial Department of Commerce shows that in the first half of this year, total sales of Hainan's offshore duty-free stores exceeded 32.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31 percent. The number of duty-free shoppers exceeded 5.16 million, up 34 percent year-on-year. And the number of duty-free items purchased exceeded 25.68 million, up 5.8 percent from the previous year.