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Hainan Province has joined the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) as a Destination Partner, giving China’s tropical island a direct connection to global travel-industry leaders as it pushes for more international visitors, investment, and air connectivity.
The timing is significant. Hainan joins just over a week before the 26th WTTC Global Summit in Valletta, Malta, from 7–9 October 2026 , where more than 1,000 delegates from over 100 countries, including more than 200 leading Travel & Tourism CEOs and senior executives, are expected.
It also comes as WTTC expands its relationship with destinations themselves. National, regional and city tourism organizations are increasingly joining its network, giving tourism boards another international platform alongside — or independently of — relationships with intergovernmental organizations such as UN Tourism .
For Hainan, which aims to welcome 154 million domestic and international tourist visits by 2030, joining WTTC is therefore about considerably more than membership.
It is about access. And other destinations may want to pay attention.
A new door for destinations at WTTC
WTTC has historically been best known as the global body representing the private sector of Travel & Tourism. Its members include leaders of major hotel companies, airlines, airports, cruise lines, tour operators, technology platforms and other international travel businesses.
But destination organisations now have a visible route into that network through WTTC’s Destination Partnercategory.
In 2026, Switzerland Tourism, Uganda Tourism Board, the Egyptian Tourism Authority and Malta Tourism Authorityamong others were among those joining as Destination Partners before Hainan. That trend is continuting in rapid speed and deserves attention.
For tourism boards, participation in WTTC and membership of UN Tourism are not necessarily substitutes.
UN Tourism operates principally in the government and public-policy sphere. WTTC’s distinctive asset is its private-sector network. A destination can therefore engage through government and UN Tourism while simultaneously using WTTC to develop relationships with the businesses that transport, accommodate, distribute and sell travel.
Others may choose the WTTC relationship separately. The commercial logic is straightforward.
A tourism board can promote a destination, but it cannot create international airlift by itself. A cruise strategy needs cruise companies. Luxury tourism requires hotels, operators and distribution. Visitor targets ultimately require companies willing to sell the seats, rooms and experiences.
WTTC can put destination leaders in the same room as many of those decision-makers. That makes Hainan’s membership relevant far beyond China.
Hainan’s best move may be looking beyond China
For all Hainan has achieved, its biggest tourism opportunity now lies beyond simply becoming bigger at home.
With more than 100 million tourist visits already recorded annually, Hainan has scale. What it needs next is greater international recognition, air connectivity, distribution and industry relationships.
That makes joining WTTC particularly well timed.
Hainan is entering a network that includes many of the companies capable of helping turn international tourism ambitions into actual visitors: airlines, hotel groups, airports, cruise companies, tour operators, technology platforms and investors.
It also comes at a moment when geopolitical relationships, aviation patterns and traveller flows can change quickly. Building a broader network across markets gives Hainan more opportunities to diversify rather than becoming overly dependent on any single international source market.
In that sense, joining WTTC may be one of Hainan tourism’s smartest international moves in years— provided the province turns access into airline partnerships, distribution, investment and measurable visitor growth.
And there is a wider industry story here.
If Hainan can demonstrate tangible returns from WTTC Destination Partner membership, other national, regional and city tourism boards are likely to pay close attention.
Why Hainan — and why now?
Hainan already knows WTTC.
In 2014, Sanya hosted the 14th WTTC Global Summit, bringing hundreds of international tourism leaders to the island.
More than a decade later, becoming a Destination Partner looks less like an introduction and more like a return to a relationship Hainan now has stronger reasons to develop.
There are several obvious benefits.
The first is distribution. Hainan can build hotels, duty-free malls, marinas and attractions, but international travellers reach them through airlines, tour operators, online travel platforms, cruise companies and hotel networks.
The second is visibility. Hainan enjoys enormous recognition inside China but remains considerably less familiar internationally than Hawaii, Bali or Phuket.
The third is credibility and relationships. Being continuously involved with global travel-industry leaders is different from simply declaring an ambition to become a world-class international destination.
And the fourth is increasingly important: international relationship-building in a fast-moving geopolitical environment.
From “China’s Hawaii” to Hainan
For anyone who has followed Hainan tourism for several decades, the Hawaii comparison is impossible to miss.
Today Hainan talks about marine tourism, wellness, surfing, rainforests, duty-free shopping and even space tourism. But during its early tourism development, the proposition was simpler: take an internationally understood tropical-island model and make it Chinese.
The obvious reference was Hawaii.
Hainan and Hawaii formally became sister province and state in 1992. In the early 1990s, Hainan even promoted itself with a message essentially saying:
“Hawaii is too far; come to China’s Hainan Island.”
It was bold, but commercially clever. Hainan did not need to explain the tropical-island holiday from scratch. Hawaii had already created a globally understood template.
Claims have also circulated about Hainan’s early visual identity and logos resembling Hawaiian tourism branding. The broader influence of Hawaii is well documented, but evidence for literal copying of an official Hawaii tourism logo is less conclusive and should be treated cautiously.
The more interesting story is that Hawaii genuinely became a reference point and, at times, something approaching a tourism mentor.
The relationship has endured. Hainan officials have continued exchanges with Hawaii and specifically highlighted its experience in developing international tourism products and overseas marketing.
But successful destinations eventually need to graduate from comparisons. That is the transition Hainan is now attempting.
Building China’s tropical tourism destination
Hainan’s modern tourism experiment accelerated in 1988, when it separated from Guangdong, became China’s newest province and the country’s largest Special Economic Zone.
China was opening economically and its emerging middle class would eventually possess both the money and leisure time to travel. Hainan had something most Chinese provinces could never manufacture: a genuinely tropical climate and extensive island coastline.
Sanya’s Yalong Bay became an early centre for resort development. International hotel groups arrived, followed by newer resort districts such as Haitang Bay.
The decisive policy step came around 2010 with China’s backing for the Hainan International Tourism Island, placing tourism at the centre of the province’s development.
Visitor numbers surged. Then came an even bigger experiment.
The Hainan Free Trade Port
In 2020, China unveiled the master plan for the Hainan Free Trade Port.
Hainan was no longer being positioned simply as China’s tropical holiday island. It was to become a gateway for international consumption, trade, investment and economic cooperation. Tourism sits at the heart of that strategy.
Visa-free policies have expanded, duty-free shopping has become a major attraction and international air connectivity has grown. Hainan is also trying to broaden its product beyond conventional resorts into cruise and yacht tourism, wellness, sports, culture, rainforest experiences and space tourism.
Director-General Chen Tiejundescribes the objective as strengthening global connectivity while developing distinctive experiences across marine, wellness and space tourism.
That last category is particularly interesting.
At Wenchang, visitors can watch Chinese rockets launch from an island better known for beaches and coconut palms — a tourism combination few destinations can reproduce.
The numbers reveal Hainan’s opportunity — and its problem
Hainan is already enormous as a tourism destination.
In 2025 it recorded approximately 106 million domestic and international tourist visits, generating around RMB225 billion in tourism expenditure. But only about 1.5 million visits were inbound.
That is the statistic that helps explain WTTC membership.
Hainan does not principally need to prove that it can attract tourists. It needs to become much more successful at attracting international tourists.
By 2030, the province is targeting 154 million domestic and international visits, approximately RMB363 billion in tourism expenditure and 3.5 million inbound visitors.
International arrivals therefore need to more than double from 2025 levels.
The domestic Chinese market will remain Hainan’s enormous foundation. But being successful domestically does not automatically make a destination globally competitive.
Where will the international visitors come from?
Russia has re-emerged as one of Hainan’s most important overseas markets. Other significant and developing markets include Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Thailand and Vietnam.
That creates a natural first international circle around Hainan: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Russia.
Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America represent a more difficult second layer.
New international air routes are helping, but connectivity remains fundamental. A destination can have excellent hotels and beaches, but if reaching them requires inconvenient connections or expensive flights, competitors gain an immediate advantage. This is another reason relationships with the global travel industry matter.
Tourism in a geopolitical age
There is also a geopolitical dimension to Hainan’s strategy. International tourism is increasingly exposed to changes in bilateral relations, visas, aviation access, airspace restrictions, sanctions, currencies and traveller sentiment. Destinations heavily dependent on a few overseas markets can quickly become vulnerable.
For Hainan, diversification therefore matters. WTTC cannot remove geopolitical risk. What it can provide is a broad international private-sector network.
Relationships with airline executives, hotel groups, cruise companies, investors, technology platforms and tour operators can remain commercially valuable even when the wider political environment becomes difficult.
Seen this way, Hainan’s membership is partly destination marketing, partly business development and partly international network-building.
What Hainan still has to prove
Hainan’s achievements are substantial. It has built a major resort economy, attracted leading international hotel groups, developed large resort districts, expanded airports and air routes, created an enormous duty-free retail sector and begun developing more distinctive attractions.
Wanning has emerged as a surfing destination. The tropical rainforest provides an alternative to beach tourism. Li and Miao culture gives the island a heritage dimension. Boao brings conferences and international affairs. Wenchang brings space tourism. But Hainan’s next challenge is harder than constructing hotels.
It must create an international destination culture.
Foreign travellers judge destinations through hundreds of small experiences: flights, payment systems, multilingual information, maps, restaurants, transport, internet access, booking platforms, nightlife, service and the ease of exploring independently.
A five-star hotel can create an international environment inside its gates. A truly international destination has to create one outside them.
There is also an environmental challenge. Tropical destinations repeatedly discover that uncontrolled tourism growth can damage the beaches, forests, reefs and communities that attracted visitors in the first place.
With a target of 154 million visits, Hainan will eventually have to consider not only how many tourists it can attract, but what kind of tourism it wants.
From copying the model to becoming the model
This brings Hainan back to Hawaii.
Thirty years ago, invoking Hawaii was an efficient shortcut. Chinese consumers immediately understood what Hainan wanted to become.
Today, Hawaii may still offer Hainan lessons — but different ones.
Hawaii’s contemporary debates about overtourism, environmental protection, cultural preservation and how tourism should benefit residents may ultimately prove more useful than the resort-development model Hainan originally admired.
The mentor relationship can mature.
Hainan no longer needs to copy the idea of a tropical paradise. Its challenge is determining what a distinctly Hainaneseisland destination should be.
Its strongest assets may ultimately be those competitors cannot reproduce: Li and Miao culture, Chinese island cuisine, tropical rainforest, Wanning surf culture, Boao, the Free Trade Port experiment, marine science and the extraordinary spectacle of rockets launching beside a tropical coastline. That combination exists nowhere else.
Why other tourism boards should watch
Hainan’s move also raises a wider question for destination organisations.
The WTTC Global Summit in Malta on 7–9 Octoberwill bring together more than 1,000 delegates from over 100 countries, including more than 200 CEOs and senior executives from global Travel & Tourism.
For tourism boards, those executives are not simply conference delegates. They represent potential airlines, investors, hotel partners, cruise operators, technology providers and distribution channels.
WTTC says there has also been strong destination interest in hosting future summits, further demonstrating how governments and tourism organisations increasingly see value in direct engagement with the private-sector travel community.
Destination Partner membership will not automatically produce visitors or investment. Its value depends on what a tourism board actually does with the access.
But Hainan’s decision highlights a question that other national, regional and city tourism organisationsmay increasingly ask:
If the companies controlling much of global tourism investment, connectivity and distribution are already inside WTTC, should destinations be in the room too?
For Hainan, the answer appears clear. Its ambition is considerable: 154 million annual visits and 3.5 million inbound visitors by 2030.
Reaching the overall target will depend heavily on China’s enormous domestic travel market. Reaching the international target requires something different — air connectivity, overseas distribution, international partnerships, better global recognition and a destination identity that can stand on its own.
For decades, Hainan’s tourism strategy revolved around a relatively simple question: How can China build its own Hawaii?
The question now is much more interesting: How can Hainan persuade the world to travel there precisely because it is Hainan?
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