Canada Goose jackets originally priced over 10,000 yuan can now be snapped up for just 6,900 yuan, while long queues form outside Arc'teryx stores—staff claim this outlet is the cheapest nationwide! Just how frenzied is Hainan’s duty-free consumption scene?
The recently concluded New Year holiday saw Hainan emerge as a top domestic travel hotspot. The upcoming nine-day Spring Festival holiday is expected to continue this momentum.
On January 5, inquiries revealed that although the Spring Festival is still over a month away, Hainan’s tourism market has already begun heating up, with both airfare and hotel rates climbing steadily, signaling an early travel rush.
For the first day of the Spring Festival holiday on February 15, the lowest direct flight ticket from Beijing to Sanya has surged to 3,600 yuan. The same flight (CA1345) costs 4,040 yuan on February 15, compared to 1,350 yuan on January 6—a spike of nearly 200%. Third-party platforms show that a room at the Atlantis Sanya Hotel on February 18 is priced above 5,800 yuan, up 3,612 yuan from 2,188 yuan on January 5—a jump of approximately 165%.
Given Hainan’s impressive duty-free sales during the New Year period, it is easy to anticipate a "vacation + shopping" consumption boom during the Spring Festival.
Hainan’s hotels are seeing a significant number of foreign tourists.
International visitors flocked to Sanya for New Year’s celebrations.
Sunny beaches and traditional Chinese wellness therapies became popular choices.
A traveler surnamed Lü, who vacationed in Sanya over the New Year, noticed an unusually high number of foreign tourists during the 2026 New Year holiday. “The hotel lobby, beaches, and restaurants were filled with fair-haired, blue-eyed faces—if you took a photo and told friends it was Europe, they might easily believe it,” Lü remarked with a laugh.
“My parents flew 10 hours to celebrate New Year’s in Sanya—totally worth it!” a Russian blogger living in China posted on social media. “Drinking fresh coconuts every day, enjoying great weather by the sea—it’s so comfortable I don’t want to leave. Now I understand why Dadonghai is called our ‘second homeland’.” Another netizen joked, “Sanya’s night markets only have two languages: Russian and Northeastern-accented Mandarin.” “Dadonghai’s menus include Russian, and foot massage shops have Russian announcements.”
Convenient visa-free policies have opened the door, making it easier for foreign tourists to visit China. As of November 2025, China has granted unilateral visa-free entry to citizens of 48 countries, allowing stays of up to 30 days for tourism, business, or family visits.
Hainan has already become a popular destination for inbound tourism.
It was observed that staff at major Sanya hotels have even mastered foreign languages like Russian, seamlessly switching between languages to communicate with international guests. “There were even more people earlier; Russian tourists came with tour groups, and the Dadonghai beach was practically covered with them. At peak times, over half of our hotel’s guests were Russian,” a staff member at a Sanya hotel noted. By December 2025, as Sanya entered its domestic tourism high season and hotel prices rose, foreign group tours decreased, shifting instead to independent “foreign individual travelers” booking via major travel platforms.
“Foreign tourists adapt well in Sanya; they use ride-hailing apps, enjoy buying Chinese silk, trying traditional Chinese acupuncture, and certainly have considerable spending power,” the hotel staff added. “It’s great for our business; they rarely order delivery and are quite comfortable spending at the hotel lounge.”
Statistics show that from January to September 2025, Hainan received 973,900 inbound overnight tourists, a 29% year-on-year increase. Among them, 822,600 were foreign tourists, accounting for 84.46% of the total, up 27.7% year-on-year. Visa-free entry has become the primary method for foreign tourists visiting Hainan.
During the 2026 New Year holiday, the national inbound tourism market maintained strong growth. Data provided by Ctrip showed a 110% year-on-year increase in attraction ticket bookings, while bookings for experiential inbound tourism products surged over 30 times. Post-Hainan’s customs closure, the “duty-free shopping + seaside vacation” model has become a major draw for international tourists, with Sanya’s inbound orders up 170% and Wanning’s nearly quadrupling. Additionally, Lixian, Heihe, Nanning, Yantai, and Foshan emerged as “dark horse” destinations with notable inbound tourism growth, indicating a shift toward deeper, more diversified travel preferences among international visitors.
Shoppers braved 30°C heat to snap up Canada Goose down jackets.
Arc'teryx’s “price advantage” led to controlled entry with queues.
The 2026 New Year holiday was the first short break following the full island customs closure in Hainan. Meituan data indicated that flight and train ticket bookings in Haikou and Sanya during the period rose 49% year-on-year, with travelers from Beijing, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Shanghai, and Guangzhou forming the main cohort for Hainan New Year trips. According to Fliggy’s "2026 New Year Holiday Travel Report," Hainan’s scenic spot ticket bookings jumped 270% year-on-year, while car rental bookings increased by 120%.
Duty-free shops across Hainan launched promotional campaigns to spur consumption. The cdf Sanya Duty-Free Shop rolled out a “Crazy Shopping Season,” offering additional discounts on select items—such as 800 yuan off for every 8,000 yuan spent, stacked with 100 yuan off for every 1,000 yuan spent. It was noted that the Sanya China Duty-Free mall was packed during the holiday, with Canada Goose, Arc'teryx, and Lululemon stores attracting particularly large crowds; Arc'teryx even required queuing and controlled entry due to high demand.
Certain brands experienced exceptionally high popularity.
Despite Sanya’s nearly 30°C temperatures, Canada Goose down jackets priced originally around 10,000 yuan were in high demand. According to store staff, the duty-free price for one model was 8,400 yuan; with the mall’s “8,000 off 800” promotion, it dropped to 7,600 yuan, and stacking the “1,000 off 100” discount brought the final price down to just 6,900 yuan. If shoppers managed to secure government consumption vouchers, even greater savings were possible.
“Currently, we only carry autumn-winter styles, no spring-summer collections.” Even though Arc'teryx staff repeatedly reminded customers that most items weren’t suitable for immediate wear in Sanya’s climate, long queues persisted outside the store. “All products in the store are exempt from the 13% tax. Since we are a self-operated store, we don’t participate in the cdf mall’s additional promotions, but we do offer mall points redeemable for other purchases. The 13% tax exemption is equivalent to a 13% discount, and since official Arc'teryx stores don’t offer discounts, ours is the cheapest in China. Moreover, these offers are exclusive to our physical store and not available on the cdf’s online mini-program for off-island duty-free shopping.”
However, not all products in the duty-free mall are tax-exempt or discounted. For instance, brands like Kweichow Moutai and LV operating within the cdf Sanya Duty-Free Shop sell products inclusive of tax. Staff at the Kweichow Moutai store clarified that they do not participate in any mall promotions.
Additionally, gold jewelry sales in Hainan’s off-island duty-free shops were particularly strong, with price differentials being the key driver of this “gold rush.” On January 4, it was observed at the cdf Sanya Phoenix Airport Duty-Free Shop that Lao Miao Gold’s tax-free gold price was 1,188 yuan per gram, compared to the market tax-inclusive price of 1,356 yuan per gram—a difference of 168 yuan per gram.
Lao Miao Gold’s per-gram price gap reached 168 yuan.
According to Haikou Customs data released on January 4, during the New Year holiday (January 1–3, 2026), customs supervised the sale of 442,000 duty-free items, a 52.4% year-on-year increase. The number of shoppers reached 83,500, up 60.6%, with total sales hitting 712 million yuan, surging 128.9% compared to the previous year.
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