China will offer greater visa-free access for tourists from 59 countries to Hainan fromĀ May 1, in a move to support reform and opening up in the country’s southernmost island province, the State Immigration Administration announced Wednesday last week.

Hainan has offered a 15-day visa-free stay for group tourists from 21 countries since 2000, and added another five countries to the list in 2010. Last year, Hainan received nearly 320,000 tourists from the 26 countries with visa-free access, 3.5 times the number recorded in 2016. Tourists from Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Russia accounted for more than 90 percent of the total.