Eight ideas for independent tours, explore Haikou’s unique character

Historical and cultural tours, sports tours, urban leisure tours, scenic and food tours, Internet celebrity spotting tours, parent-child study tours, beautiful countryside tours, and specialty shopping tours.

The May Day holiday is approaching, which heralds the annual Spring outing. With strict pandemic prevention and control measures, the Haikou Municipal Bureau of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports and the Haikou’s Association of Travel Services have launched 23 tourist routes with eight themes.

They integrate the new elements of leisure tourism created by Haikou in recent years, targeting more than 10 million people on the island with high-quality leisure tourism and cultural opportunities, inviting all residents of the island to visit Haikou.

The transformation of tourism and leisure projects, the new landmark of local life

With the consumption choices of local residents and tourists from different places gradually converging, the boundary between tourism and leisure is also becoming more and more blurred. Haikou has played the comprehensive service function of the provincial capital city and upgraded the commercial form: the crater night scene lighting project, the arcade street attractions, the Haikou Bay cruise and sightseeing shuttle project, the upgrading and reconstruction project of Hairui Cultural Park, the ecological restoration project and lighting project in the south area of the west coast, and the construction project of Qiongtai Fudi Historic District. A number of tourism and leisure projects have become new landmarks for local life.

"Haikou tourism has entered a stage of high-quality development. The emergence of many new projects and new business formats has made Haikou residents both familiar but not the same as before. We hope that through the guidance of themed tours, we can let everyone see a brand-new Haikou. Life is tourism. In this era, what the locals like is what tourists really like. We are looking for the source of tourists on the island, turning the residents of the island into tourists and tour guides, and fully displaying the lively colours and fireworks of Haikou,” said the person in charge of the Haikou Municipal Bureau of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports.

Eight ideas for independent tours, subdivided product diversion travelers

Amid changes in tourism demand under the normalised epidemic situation, Mai Weiwen, Secretary-General of Haikou Association of Travel Services, introduced that the Haikou Tourism and Culture Bureau is targeting youth groups, female groups, business travellers and family groups.

The focuses are on Haikou volcanoes, natural resources such as the coast and human resources such as arcades.

Eight special independent tour routes have been launched, including historical and cultural tours, sports tours, urban leisure tours, scenic and food tours, internet celebrity spotting tours, parent-child study tours, beautiful countryside tours, and specialty shopping tours (including one-day, two-day and three-day tours). A total of 23.

Citizens and tourists can plan according to time and their needs, and there are more than 100 routes to combine one-day tours into two-day and three-day versions.

Each themed route is the result of in-depth analysis of Haikou's resources and the needs of tourists of different ages. "Old places with new exploring opportunities, small streets and old lanes, these new themed routes will be a dialogue between history and modernity.

“In the next step, Haikou Travel Agency will actively seek tourists from the residents of the island with Haikou as the core, focusing on organising the residents of the cities and counties in western Hainan who yearn for tourism in the provincial capital, Haikou, especially the parent-child tourists who mainly travel with families. At the same time, we will go deep into each community and use subdivided products to divert the flow to attract the residents of the whole island to Haikou."

Many Haikou residents are looking forward to the launch of the new routes: "If you haven't been to Arcade Street, you don't count as having been to Haikou. If you want to know more about Haikou, you must go to the Arcade Street!" When

Chang Lili entertains relatives and friends from all over the world and Arcade Street is a must for her.

"You don't have to travel to come to the scenic spot. Sometimes you ask someone to talk about business, go to a special place to have a refreshing meal, and drink a partridge tea. The atmosphere of Laoba's Tea in Haikou can also better promote the cooperation between the two parties," said Mo Minzhi, a citizen of Haikou.