Fewer tourists visited Hainan, China's premier tourist destination last year and two reasons are given for the decline.

From 815,600 tourists in 2012 only 756,400 tourists visited Hainan in 2013. Lu Zhiyuan, director of the provincial tourism development commission said that the decrease in tourist influx can be blamed on two things: stronger competition posed by neighboring countries and airspace restrictions. 

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"We need to keep our prices competitive and open more airspace for airlines," Lu commented.

Tourists flock to Hainan for its beautiful beaches, the best in the whole of China. This island resort where you can find a good number of first class hotel chain facilities is being promoted and developed to be "China's Hawaii". 

Serious effort is being undertaken by China to make Hainan a world-class tourist haven.  The whole of Hainan, in fact, is classified as a Special Economic Zone.

Many tourist destinations in nearby countries, however, offer lower rates. Many Russian, Japanese, South Korean and American tourists, which make up a big part of Hainan's tourist market, then opted to go to these other Asian tourist destinations.

Hainan's potential tourists chose to go to nearby Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand where prices are lower, contributing to the decline in Hainan's total tourist count for 2013 by 7.3 percent compared to 2012.

"We should monitor our prices to attract global tourists," said Lu. Local tourism authorities in Hainan are looking into different strategies to make the island resort truly attractive to tourists, Lu added.

It is not just the prices in Hainan that brought about the decline.  The lack of international flights to the island is another major factor.

According to the 2011 report of the World Travel and Tourism Council, only 8 percent of the flights landing in and taking off from Hainan were international flights.

To have more commercial flights flying in to Hainan, airspace restrictions in the Hainan region have to be lessened further, according to Lu.

Even with the opening of three new routes to Sanya, Hainan's capital, in January as announced by China's Civil Aviation Administration, Lu believes it is still not enough.