The Chinese resort island of Hainan has placed more cities, including the provincial capital Haikou, into lockdown as a COVID-19 outbreak spreads, stranding tens of thousands of tourists in one of the nation’s most popular holiday destinations.

The province reported 504 cases on Sunday, taking the current outbreak to almost 1500 since the first infection was detected a week ago. Haikou – a major flight hub for the island – and the beachside resort city of Sanya have been placed into lockdown, while Wanning and Qionghai are under “static management”, a term commonly used when referring to lockdowns.

The tropical city’s outbreak has spread to 10 cities and counties on Hainan, and to at least four other provinces, including Hunan and Guizhou, with each on Sunday reporting one infection coming from Sanya.

As of Saturday, 25,000 tourists were stuck in hotels in Sanya, according to a briefing by the provincial government on Sunday. Arrangements have been made for more than 3000 tourists at Sanya Phoenix International Airport to stay at nearby hotels. The stranded travellers will have to pay half the room bill this week.

More than 81 million tourists visited the island in 2021 and tourism spending rose to 250 billion yuan ($53 billion), both figures rising about 26 per cent year-on-year.

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Overall, there were 807 cases reported on Sunday, up from 736 on Saturday and the most in two weeks. The flare up in cases, from less than 300 as recently as Wednesday, shows the difficulty of meeting the country’s strict COVID-Zero policy in the face of more infectious omicron sub-variants. After taming outbreaks in megacities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, cases continue to pop up in other regions.

Tibet recorded four infections on Sunday, the first in 920 days. The remote, mountainous region had detected just one prior case since the pandemic started.

One city and two towns entered lockdown in Hainan on Monday, according to Reuters calculations based on state media reports.