The average daily sales since July has exceeded 100 million yuan-
Duty-free shopping on Hainan Islands
Our reporter Pan Shipeng
The picture shows a corner of the duty-free shop in Riyue Square, Haikou City, Hainan Province. Photo by our reporter Pan Shipeng
Recently, driven by the new tax-free shopping policy on outlying islands, Hainan's tourism consumption has shown a boom. According to the data, from July 1 to August 18, the sales of the four outlying island duty-free shops in Hainan Province exceeded 5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.5 times, and the average daily sales exceeded 100 million yuan; the number of shoppers reached 740,000, a year-on-year increase of 70 %; The number of purchases was 4.58 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.5 times.
Statistics have found that the newly added categories of duty-free products are very popular. The most popular are portable electronic products such as mobile phones, alcohol and tablet computers, with sales accounting for 95% of the total sales of the new categories. The consumption of duty-free goods with a unit price of more than RMB 8,000 increased by 4.2 times year-on-year, which played an important role in actively guiding the return of overseas consumption of high-end goods.
In addition, the proportion of shoppers in the total number of outlying island tourists has increased significantly. In July, there were about 1.6 million outlying island passengers from the airports and sea ports of Hainan Province, among which 467,000 people purchased duty-free goods at duty-free shops, accounting for 29% of the total number of outlying island passengers, more than double the same period last year.
Recently, the People’s Government of Hainan Province officially approved Hainan Tourism Investment Development Co., Ltd.'s wholly-owned subsidiary Hainan Tourism Investment Duty Free Co., Ltd., and Hainan Development Holdings Co., Ltd.'s wholly-owned subsidiary, Global Consumer Products (Hainan) Trading Co., Ltd. to enjoy the duty-free operation of Hainan Islands Qualifications. According to Chen Xi, Director of the Hainan Provincial Department of Commerce, the approval of the two local business entities is conducive to the gradual formation of a diversified and differentiated competition pattern for outlying island duty-free sales, and the overall realization of Hainan's outlying island duty-free products in terms of brand, variety and price are comparable to international ones. "Three synchronizations" to better meet the tax-free shopping needs of tourists.
It is reported that Hainan is also striving to establish three new duty-free shops in Sanya this year, and plans to adopt market-based competition methods such as bidding to determine the operating entities.
In response to consumers' complaints about the small number of duty-free shopping brands in outlying islands and the long queue time for individual categories. Relevant departments of Hainan Province have communicated with operating companies many times to urge them to improve service quality and shopping experience as soon as possible. Operating companies transfer goods through global channels, and the shortage of some products has been improved; before the end of September, the business area of Haikou Riyue Square Duty Free Shop and Sanya Haitang Bay Duty Free City will be increased to attract more international brands to settle in; new outlying island pickup points will be opened Among them, the area of Sanya Phoenix Airport’s pick-up point has more than doubled, Meilan Airport has expanded by nearly 3 times, and Xinhai Port has expanded by nearly 20 times. In addition, the situation will be further improved after introducing business entities from outside the province to open new duty-free shops on outlying islands.