Between 2012 and 2021, the number of domestic and foreign tourists visiting Sanya increased from 11.02 million to 21.62 million, and the volume of Sanya's tourism income rose from 19.22 billion yuan ($2.29 billion) to 74.7 billion yuan. In 2018, Sanya became China's first non-provincial city with an annual passenger throughput exceeding 20 million.
During the National Day golden week of 2021, Sanya recorded 980 million yuan in duty-free goods sales, which was near the overall sales volume of the first year of the implementation of the offshore duty-free policy in Hainan.
According to statistics, the duty-free sales volume of Hainan was 27.48 billion yuan in 2020, 28 times that in 2011 when the off-shore duty-free policy was initially announced. The sales of duty-free products in Sanya accounted for 70 percent of the overall sales in Hainan province, attracting countless consumers to the "shopping magnet" city.
In 2021, a total of 21.62 million tourists made overnight stays in Sanya, a 19.69 percent growth year-on-year, and Sanya's tourism revenue stood at 74.7 billion yuan, rising 65.17 percent from the year before.
Through the years, Sanya hosted a number of influential sport competitions and leisure events as a way of showcasing the city to the outside world and promoting the deep integration of sports and tourism. The Hainan International Marathon, FIA Formula E Championship, Volvo Ocean Race, Round Hainan Regatta, Sinan Regatta, World Series of Boxing, World Tai Ji Culture Festival and other major events were held in Sanya, making sports tourism a new business card for the city.
To the credit of Hainan's free trade port policies, Sanya has formed 12 tourism ecologies, namely ocean tourism, consumption tourism, culture tourism, sports tourism, exhibition tourism, health tourism, wedding tourism, forest tourism, village tourism, food tourism, night-time tourism, and R&V and camping tourism.
Sanya strives to promote the construction of public cultural facilities. So far, a city library, an art museum, an art gallery, an intangible cultural heritage experience center, 149 village (community) comprehensive cultural service centers, 17 all-day self-service libraries, 79 moveable libraries, nine tourist service consultation and reading points, two newspaper & magazine reading points, 13 digital cinemas, eight private theaters, five private art galleries, five private museums and 24 cultural sites have been built in Sanya.
Focusing on optimizing tourist toilets, tourist distribution centers, visitor centers, tourism signs and other services, Sanya is making great efforts to improve tourism management, smart tourism and volunteer services to continuously enhance its brand awareness as a tourism city and to provide services for the daily lives of local residents.
