China is trying to boost domestic tourism

Surfing is harder than Huang Shimin had expected. Alongside a bunch of other wet-suited novices, she is trying it out on the golden sands of Hainan, a tropical island roughly the size of Taiwan, off China’s southernmost tip. The young professional from Shanghai is exactly the kind of high-spending tourist that China’s government hopes will holiday within China now the pandemic is over. The lunar-new-year break, which began on February 10th, will be a test of the push to spur domestic consumption through tourism.

Hainan should be a model for this policy. When Xi Jinping, China’s leader, visited in 2013, he urged locals to harness the “green mountains, clear waters, blue seas and azure skies” to build “an international tourism island”. As in many peripheral areas where Mr Xi has bolstered the travel industry, including Tibet and Xinjiang, he also has a political agenda. China’s vast size means that the central government’s control is often weaker in these far-flung provinces. Hainan is strategically important, located on the South China Sea, where China has been militarising reclaimed islands. It is also home to a giant naval base, as well as space and satellite launch sites, and hosts the annual Bo’ao forum, a meeting of bigwigs often dubbed “Asia’s Davos”.