SHANGHAI, Feb 19 Reuters Shoppers visiting China39;s island province of Hainan spent a record 2.49 billion yuan 346.2 million on dutyfree goods over the eightday Lunar New Year holiday, data from Haikou Customs showed.

That represents a yearonyear rise of 60, with the number of shoppers from Feb. 1017 reaching more than 297,000, each spending an average of 8,358 yuan on dutyfree goods.

Since 2020, when China tripled dutyfree purchase limits in the 12 dutyfree malls in Hainan to 100,000 yuan, overall dutyfree spending has also tripled from about 2 billion in 2019 to more than 6.1 billion in 2023. That growth is expected to continue as the entire island is set to become dutyfree in 2025.

Even a year after Chinese borders reopened, the lure of dutyfree shopping in Hainan, an island about the size of Belgium, remains strong as flight restrictions, visa delays and the high cost of travel to farflung international destinations have kept many Chinese travellers.

Spending in Hainan was a notable bright spot for tourism spending over China39;s Lunar New Year holiday, with domestic Chinese tourists overall still spending less per trip than they did in 2019, despite a boom in trips this year after an enormous wave of COVID infections impeded last year39;s holiday period.

Overall domestic tourism spending jumped by 47.3 to 632.7 billion yuan 87.96 billion from the same holiday period in 2023, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released Sunday.

The number…