The ever-popular resort city of Sanya in China's southernmost Hainan province has been picked to be one of China's pilot cities for a national initiative to improve digital services for international visitors.

The initiative was launched at the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference, which recently opened in Beijing.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Commerce jointly launched the Special Initiative to Improve Digital Services for International Visitors in Key Cities — with Sanya included among the selected pilot cities.

The pilot cities were chosen based on factors including the scale of inbound travelers, the level of digital development and the demand for applications scenarios.

Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Sanya — areas with relatively strong infrastructure and service capabilities — were among the cities selected to take the lead in exploring new approaches to improving digital services for international visitors.

Sanya's selection as a national pilot city is widely seen as fully recognizing the city's long-term efforts to facilitate inbound travel and improve its international tourism services system.

In recent years, Sanya has accelerated its development into a world-leading modern coastal city that is suitable for living, tourism and business, while continuously expanding its level of opening-up.

Focusing on the needs and challenges being faced by overseas visitors, the city has continued to improve its support services for foreign-related tourism, remove obstacles that hamper inbound travel and daily living, and attract increasing numbers of international tourists.

According to preliminary statistics, Sanya received 599,600 inbound visitor trips during the first five months of this year, representing a hefty year-on-year increase of 51.5 percent. Total spending by inbound visitors hit $560 million, up a whopping 71.5 percent on the same period of last year.

As part of its efforts to build a model city for easy payments for international visitors to Hainan, Sanya has continued to improve payment services across seven major sectors: Dining, accommodation, transportation, tourism, shopping, entertainment and healthcare.

By April this year, 6,086 merchants across the city were able to accept international bank cards, supported by 12,400 point-of-sale or POS terminals for overseas cards.

Alipay and WeChat Pay have also connected with more than 40 overseas digital wallets from 17 countries and regions — allowing international visitors to make payments by scanning QR codes using their home-country e-wallets.

What's more, Sanya has established an integrated foreign currency exchange service network combining staffed services with self-service facilities.

The city now operates 67 foreign currency exchange service points and has installed six self-service foreign currency exchange machines at the airport, major hotels and key commercial districts — providing comprehensive coverage across major travel scenarios.

To address language and communications barriers faced by international visitors, the Sanya 12345 Government Service Hotline now provides a dedicated service in English, Korean, Russian and Japanese.

Multilingual signs have also been progressively introduced at tourist attractions and hotels throughout the city. Some high-end hotels and resort areas have fully implemented trilingual service and wayfinding signage in Chinese, English and Russian.

Restaurant menus are increasingly available in all three languages, while frontline service personnel proficient in English and Russian have also been deployed to better serve international visitors.