(Yicai Global) Jan. 17 -- China’s first Hello Kitty-themed hotel will be built in Sanya, a tropical tax-free tourist destination in southern Hainan province. It is expected to open in 2025.

The hotel, which will have 221 rooms and villas, dining halls, a swimming pool, and a fitness center, will be developed by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Keystone Group and run by US hospitality giant Hyatt Hotels, The Paper reported today, citing a joint statement from the pair.

The hotel will go up within the 210,000-square-meter Hello Kitty theme park, which will is scheduled to open its doors in 2024.

Keystone signed an intellectual property licensing deal with Hello Kitty’s creator Sanrio in July 2019 to access over 400 trademarks of the Japanese firm’s characters, most of which will feature in the Sanya theme park. Keystone is investing CNY11 billion (USD1.7 billion) in the project.

Sanrio opened its first Hello Kitty park outside of Japan in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in 2015 in cooperation with Shanghai-based property developer Yinrun Group.

Hainan island is a well-known tourist destination in China. Its visitor numbers reached 81 million last year, up 25.5 percent from 2020, according to official data. That was at 97.5 percent of pre-pandemic volume in 2019. Hainan’s tourism revenue soared 58.6 percent to CNY138.4 billion (USD21.8 billion) in 2021.

Editor: Futura Costaglione