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Ralph Jennings

Wu Runqun still recalls the fishing village Wanning once was, nearly 20 years ago.
Now in his 40s, in those younger days he had travelled there from his much larger hometown two hours away to see if he could surf.
After that first trip to Wanning, on the east coast of China’s tropical island province of Hainan, he found it hard to stay away from the two-metre (six-and-a-half-foot) swells and warm 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) water. Wu moved there in 2017.
He was not the only one to get that idea. Today, Wanning has made a name for surfing in China and beyond because of its year-round water temperatures and waves that some say put it in a league with the Indonesian island of Bali and Australia’s Gold Coast.
Gone is the fishing village feel. In 2026, Wanning teems with surf camps, shops, schools, international-brand hotels and a wave pool.
“This has become a surf theme town,” said Wu, who runs a surf club that offers coaching. Compared to surfing towns overseas, he said, “Wanning is our own place, and language isn’t a problem.”
With most of China’s long coastlines experiencing cold water at least part of the year, the sport has little recognition in most of the country.


Wanning caught an irreversible wave of attention – not only around China – in 2012. That year the World Surf League, a body that organises professional events, and the sport’s Olympics-recognised International Surfing Association held their first competitions in the city.
It now receives about 500,000 visitors a year – roughly the same as Wanning’s population – and supports 160 surf clubs, the Hainan Daily reported in January.
Searches for terms such as “surf hotels”, “ocean-view surf hotels” and “boutique surf guest houses” on the Chinese travel platform Fliggy – a subsidiary of South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding – have more than doubled for each of the past three years, according to a statement from the platform.
Average spending per surf tourist so far this year had increased by around 150 per cent compared with 2024, Fliggy’s data showed.
“Consumers’ growing preference for immersive and long-stay travel is converging with surf-related experiences, driving demand such as surf vacations [and] long-stay surf travel,” Fliggy said in the statement.
An abundance of professional coaching, themed hotels and eateries had “effectively boosted customer stickiness and retention”, it added.
Wu, who is also interning as a surf competition referee, said many surfers came from Europe, Japan and North America as well as other parts of China.
Management is messy. No one here is checking it, like whether a coach is valid or not
Xie Yao, surf club co-manager
Fliggy said interest in surf coaching and training courses had grown along with Wanning’s broader popularity.
Ten years ago, Xie Yao and her husband Huang Xing, a surfer, moved to Wanning, which they knew about partly from the international competitions. They used to work in a five-star hotel and today they co-manage one of the clubs.
While China’s soft post-pandemic economy had put a lid on general tourism in Wanning over the past two years, Xie said the surf industry was “saturated” and undermanaged. Because surfing was new to most Chinese, she said, instruction was in demand, with many clients asking how many hours of classes would be needed before they could catch their first wave.
“But it’s not an easy sport to learn,” Xie said. “Management is messy. No one here is checking it, like whether a coach is valid or not.”
Wanning, not close to Haikou or Sanya – Hainan’s two biggest cities – had kept crowds below bustling Bali levels, giving it a relative sense of seclusion, said Ethan Huang, co-founder of the local wave pool operator, Surf China.
State-owned China Tourism Group spent 80 million yuan (US$11.8 million) to build the pool, Huang said, adding customers use it for training because of the consistent waves it offers compared with those in the sea.
Huang said Wanning was a “hidden gem, not very crowded – and that’s attractive”.
“It’s everybody’s dream to just be [surfing] with friends,” he said.


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Wanning, on tropical Hainan Island, is now home to 160 surf clubs and welcomes 500,000 visitors a year


Wanning, on tropical Hainan Island, is now home to 160 surf clubs and welcomes 500,000 visitors a year.


How a quiet Chinese fishing village became a global surfing hotspot

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Wanning, on tropical Hainan Island, is now home to 160 surf clubs and welcomes 500,000 visitors a year

Wanning, on tropical Hainan Island, is now home to 160 surf clubs and welcomes 500,000 visitors a year