Sanya city enhances digital services for international visitors

The 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference kicked off in Beijing on July 2 — when a special initiative was unveiled on improving the convenience of digital services for inbound overseas visitors.

The initiative was launched at the conference's opening ceremony by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China and the Ministry of Commerce of China — and Sanya, the coastal resort destination in China's southernmost Hainan province, is one of the cities selected to participate in it.

The launch ceremony of the special initiative takes place in Beijing on July 2. [Photo/Sanya Daily]

The recognition as a national pilot city is said to highlight Sanya's ongoing efforts to further facilitate entry of international visitors into the city and optimize its services for these visitors.

Over the years, Sanya has been developing into a world-renowned modern coastal city that is ideal for living, traveling and working, with increasing levels of openness.

By addressing the challenges that are being faced by international tourists, the city has enhanced its foreign-related services — making it easier for foreign nationals to visit and stay, thereby consistently drawing a large number of people coming from abroad.

Preliminary figures showed that in the first five months of this year, Sanya handled 599,600 inbound passenger trips, up 51.5 percent over the previous year, with international tourists spending $560 million, a whopping 71.5 percent increase.

Sanya is also working on becoming a model city for easy shopping for foreigners in Hainan, by continuously improving its payments services.

As of April, the city had 6,086 merchants accepting foreign cards and 12,400 point-of-sale or POS terminals for foreign cards.

Alipay and WeChat Pay have integrated with over 40 international wallets from 17 countries and regions, enabling foreign visitors to pay using their home country's e-wallets.

Moreover, Sanya has set up a foreign currency exchange network with 67 exchange points and six self-service foreign currency machines at the airport, at major hotels and in key shopping areas, ensuring comprehensive coverage.

To overcome language and communications barriers for foreigners in Sanya, the city's 12345 government service phone hotline now offers dedicated lines in English, Korean, Russian and in Japanese.

Tourist attractions and hotels are gradually improving their multilingual signage, and some high-end hotel resorts now provide complete trilingual services and guide signs in Chinese, English and Russian.

Menus in many restaurants are available in all three languages, while frontline staff members that are fluent in English and Russian are available to assist guests.