Zhu Yingliang is one of the many small-business owners as well as local people who could benefit from more international tourists heading to Hainan.

The 53-year-old runs Zhongyuan Yuantai Mini Market in Zhongyuan town in Qionghai, eastern Hainan.

"We have started to see more visitors over the past three years, particularly from the mainland," he says.

Hundreds of tourists pass through Su Yingli's living room every day just to look at her and how she lives after a theme park was built around her home in Baoting county. Huang Yiming / China Daily

"We increasingly do have foreign tourists from Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, and we stock more items for them such as coffee."

Li Bing, 26, works in her parents' cafe, Changrong Tea House, also in Zhongyuan, as well as earning up to 2,000 yuan ($322; 292 euros) a month in the local tourist visitor center.

She says opinion is divided in some parts of the island, with some believing the local government should invest more in healthcare and not just tourism, given local wages are lower than other cities.

"Although the main resorts of Sanya and Haikou benefit most from tourism, it does also boost businesses inland. Local businesses get revenue and it does create jobs."

Tourism has already benefited many of the ethnic groups on the island.

Hundreds of tourists pass through the 63-year widow Su Yingli's living room every day just to look at her and how she lives.

Although she has lived in the house all her life, a multimillion dollar theme park dedicated to the Li and Miao ethnic groups - the Binlang Valley Cultural Tourism Zone in Baoting county - was built around it 18 years ago

"I have never seen so many people in my life before this. I actually don't pay too much attention to them as they walk through and rarely talk to them," she says.

Su struggles to understand Mandarin and speaks Sai, one of five dialects spoken by Li people, who are unique to Hainan.

She lost her husband, Tan Jianrong, four years ago when he was 72, and now lives with two other women.

The house is basic, but one of the advantages of having a theme park on your doorstep is that there are cafes, places to watch TV and other modern facilities.

"There is plenty to do here. It is actually quite sociable. There are no special rules here. I just have to keep my house neat and tidy for the visitors."

In exchange for being a tourist attraction, Su receives 1,800 yuan a month.

She also has been given a free villa outside the 59-hectare site, which her family members live in. One of her sons, Tan Jinjiang, 30, works as a builder on the site, and his wife, Chen Li, as a fruit seller.

"Before the park was built, we actually led a very poor life. Now everything is subsidized," she says.

When entering the tourist park, the Li and Miao people greet you with the name of the park, "Bloon", in the native Hainan dialect.

Huang Jingyun, 27, from the nearby town of Xinzheng, is one of a number of women who make traditional clothes so the mainly Han tourists can observe the traditional craft skills involved.

She normally does farm work at home but is being paid to be at the site for three days.

"It is actually quite good because I am making my own clothes and being paid for it. Young Li people do not normally dress like this, only at weddings and other occasions," she says.

"We wear jeans and T-shirts at home just like everyone else, although my 86-year-old grandmother does wear traditional clothes all the time."

For businesses, dealing with foreign tourists may still present a challenge.

Wu Jieguang, 64, who has run the eponymous Wu Jieguang traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Zhong-yuan, says language skills are an issue.

"I don't speak English, and I would have to hire someone with English skills for it to work. It really depends on how many foreign tourists there are whether to make that investment," he says.

(China Daily European Weekly 07/17/2015 page7)