By Chen Ziqi
This is not your ordinary expo. Here, you can try on a pair of sleek black glasses, and suddenly, you can understand nearly 90 languages in real time. You can ask for directions in English, hear the answer in Chinese, and somehow still feel like you’re in a sci-fi movie. As if that wasn’t enough, the glasses can also guide you wherever you want to go. Convenient… or slightly intimidating?
That’s the kind of “wait, is this real?” moment waiting for visitors at this year’s China International Consumer Products Expo. From April 13 to 18, the Expo takes place three major cities in Hainan, China’s tropical island paradise, showcasing thousands of examples of the next big thing.
But that’s far from all Hainan is offering. Because once you step outside the exhibition halls, the experience expands. You might stumble upon an international cycling race, wander into a beachside food pop-ups, or find yourself watching a sunset concert by the sea. As the island integrates retail, tourism, and sports into a coordinated experience, somewhere between shopping and sightseeing, the line between “consumer” and “traveler” starts to blur.
Global shopping under duty-free rules
Inside the expo, it’s essentially a curated world tour – minus the jet lag. Brands spanning more than 60 countries and regions bring everything from Canadian health and wellness products, French fashion design, Swiss watches and shoes, and food and handicrafts from Russia and Bulgaria. The Expo also features more than 200 new product launches, offering an early look at emerging trends.
But the experience goes well beyond window shopping. Many items are available for on-site purchase, allowing visitors to take them home at tax-deducted prices thanks to Hainan’s duty-free policies. These remove the need for traditional tax refund procedures, making buying more immediate and convenient.
And let’s be honest, this makes it far more dangerous for your wallet.
Beyond the halls: Coastal leisure and tourism
From April 15 to 18, the Sanya section of the expo also features a yacht exhibition showcasing leading names from around the world, including Lagoon from France, Ferretti from Italy, and Princess Yachts from Britain.
Alongside static displays inside exhibition halls, on-water demonstrations allow visitors to step aboard and experience the yachting lifestyle at sea for themselves.
Wanning is just one example. Situated in the southeast of Hainan, the city is home to a chain of bays stretching across roughly 110 kilometers of coastline.
Riyue Bay, on a similar latitude to Hawaii, has become a well-known surfing destination that draws enthusiasts year round. In addition to gliding across the waves, visitors can experience the speed and excitement of motorboat rides on open water. Divers can explore clear seas filled with schools of colourful fish, while adventure seekers can take to the skies by parachute, with stunning views of the ocean, coastline, and drifting clouds below.
That means trying on smart glasses to flying over the ocean in a single day. This is the kind of itinerary we’re talking about.
As evening falls, the focus shifts again. Open-air night markets come alive with the aroma of food, the scent of coffee, and charming folk performances, while the sounds of splashing water and laughter from nearby waterparks only adds to the lively atmosphere.
It’s less “trade fair,” more “island festival.”
From expo to island circuit: Cycling becomes a consumption engine
And just when you think the schedule couldn’t get more packed, Hainan adds another layer – a full-scale international cycling race. From April 15 to 19, the event brings together 20 world-leading cycling teams and a total prize pool of $200,000.
Over five days, spanning nearly 900 kilometers across 12 cities in Hainan, the race takes riders deep into and around the island, with each stage offering different landscapes, riding conditions, and cultural encounters.
Designated viewing areas not only allow expo visitors a front-row seat to the competition, it also offers a chance to engage with local ethnic culture and cuisine. You can pick tea on dreamy mist-covered hillsides, learn to weave traditional textiles, or explore tropical forests where streams cascade down the mountains and diverse wildlife thrives.
According to the People’s Daily, the cycling race attracted around 200,000 visitors to the designated viewing areas in five cities in 2024, generating more than $1.5 million in direct tourism spending and boosting hotel occupancy rates by 30%.
The China International Consumer Products Expo is evolving into a festival that extends beyond commerce and sport. It also features a range of cultural and entertainment performances, including violin concerts, bamboo flute recitals, and folk song performances, along with national-level exhibitions of Cambodian stone sculpture and pottery.
And perhaps that’s the real experiment here.
Taken together, the expo is no longer just a showcase of global products, but part of an emerging event-driven consumption model. One where buying, experiencing, and exploring are no longer separate activities, but part of the same journey.
Because in the end, people may come for the expo – but they stay for everything else.
About the author: Chen Ziqi is a reporter from CGTN Radio, China
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Wake up Australia!! Keating was correct …. Australia’s future in in Asia …..
NOT tied by apron strings to a far off European dysfunctional family ”ruling” over politicians who cannot get their act together for the benefit of their ”first past the post” voters;
NOT tied to a worn out gratitude to the American General MacArthur, who abandoned his troops to their fates in the Philipines to use Australia as a grand Form Up Place for his island hopping strategy to conquer Japan in the 1940s, made redundant by the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
NOT as an Occupied Vassal State of the USA (Undemocratic Sewer of Apartheid) thanks to 2500 US Marines rotating through Darwin, B-52 bombers at Darwin and Tindal, and the spy stations at Pine Gap and North-West Cape.
In the 19th century America built a reputation for ingenuity, innovation and industrial development to build a strong economy that post WWII gave the western world arguably the best of all times.
In the 21st century, the American model has failed to continue their entrepreneurial progress due to many internal factors. Now the future lies in PRC China, the state managed economy coveted by American capitalists accustomed to taking what they desire regardless of cost. (Think Venezuelan fossil fuel proven and potential reserves taken by TACO Trumpery before his defeat in the Straits of Hormuz).
Meanwhile, conservative Australian politicians sheltering under the Canberra Bubble have encouraged the sale of just about anything valuable to foreign interests for peanuts!! In 1930, at the start of the American bankers Depression, Australia had the highest standard of living in the world, leading innovations in agricultural machinery and exported our best brains to England thanks to a strongly encouraged ”cultural cringe”. No future there for Australia.
As Keating comments still. ”The future for Australia lies in Asia” and this is still the best advice heard under the Canberra Bubble.
Great post NEC.
Add to that, Paul Keating has been shown to be right on AUKUS and our spooks being led by the noses by Washington.
On a side note, with respect to the Hainan consumption experiment, I have folders on the computer containing something close to 11,000 photos taken over the years I spent in China.
Some of those images were taken in Sanya, at the southernmost end of that island. One of those images features a mugshot of me taken in the morning after a prior evening where excessive amounts of rum were imbibed. As far as a Hainan consumption experiment goes, it was a miserable failure… I look like something the dog chucked up, and probably felt twice as worse. Suffice to say, my addiction to drinking big hits of strong booze took a sabbatical after that episode.
Canguro, can I use “look like something the dog chucked up” in the future? That is priceless.
Did you ever try going to the Sanya food market, picking out your seafood and having it cooked at one of the restaurants there and then? Just brilliant.
Thommo, more than welcome. A querying eye cast at my pooch, the Kelpie X bitch who’s forever at my side; it seems she’s also okay with it, dogs being dogs, without opinions on these matters.
About the food market, it’s a while ago but likely, given I was there with my ever tolerant Chinese partner… she’s expert in matters of optimising circumstances and situations so picking out a fish and having it cooked on the spot may have happened. It certainly happened up north where we lived… going to a ‘fishing place’ in the countryside where fish were stocked in numerous ponds and you hired a rod, bought bait, sat at the side of the pond, drank beer and waited for the inevitable catch which was then cooked by the adjoining restaurant.
Getting back to the dog, a poem with respect to these beloved animals:
Honesty
If you want to see what real honesty is
look no further than the dog.
The dog doesn’t give a damn for looking good
but will hunch the leg of the Queen’s mother
if it feels like it. The dog
doesn’t care what the hell you think, it will
lick its balls in the presence of the Pope
if that is what it has a mind to do.
The dog does not stand on position, power,
wealth or fame of any kind. He will
bite the rump of the Emperor if he
tries to pick up the dog’s food; the dog
will lift its leg on the whitewall tire
of the Prime Minister’s limousine or
shit on the Dalai Lama’s prayer rug
because he is a dog and that
is what dogs do and
in some secret uncorrupted part of the self
we admire this honesty in dogs, because
we see it is absent in ourselves and
we know that such honesty
comes with a terrible price in this world.
[Red Hawk: Wreckage With A Beating Heart]