(Yicai) July 12 -- Room prices at hotels in China's getaway island province of Hainan have as much as halved this month from a year earlier following the rapid recovery of the country's outbound travel market.

Many top hotels in Sanya, a popular tourist destination in Hainan, have offered rooms priced between CNY700 and CNY1,000 (USD96.40 and USD137.70) a night so far this month, down 30 percent to 50 percent from a year ago, according to data from major Chinese travel platforms.

However, with the summer season on the horizon, room prices have jumped hundreds of Chinese yuan, equivalent to tens of US dollars, to more than CNY1,000 per night from late July to the end of August. Some hotels have even begun offering rooms for October, with prices exceeding CNY2,000.

China's outbound travel market has recovered quickly this year, and many tourists have chosen overseas destinations and Sanya has lost some of its customers, noted Wei Changren, founder of btiii.Com. This has led to a decline from a year earlier in local hotel room occupancy and prices, Wei added.

Because the rapid recovery of the tourism market last year made destinations such as Sanya exceptionally popular, room prices reached record highs, local hotels and tour operators told Yicai.

The tourism market is relatively stable and not as exaggerated in a "sharp decline," an insider from the Sanya Tourism Board said to Yicai. More parent-child family tourists will likely travel to the city in summer, the person pointed out.

Hainan welcomed 51.83 million tourists in the six months ended June 30, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 52 percent of last year's total. The number of foreign visitors surged 263 percent to 510,000, or 51 percent of the total in 2023.

Tourists spent CNY112.2 billion (USD15.6 billion) in Hainan in the first half, up 22 percent from a year ago and making up 54 percent of the total last year.

Editor: Martin Kadiev