Giving us all something to look forward to in our otherwise pointless lives, a Hello Kitty theme park is planned to open in China’s southernmost island province of Hainan in 2024.

The theme park will be located on Haitang Bay in the popular beach city of Sanya and is projected to welcome two million tourists a year.

“China’s Hawaii”

Hello Kitty’s eventual arrival is another part of China’s plan to turn Hainan into a tourist hotspot on par with the world’s top tropical travel destinations.

In this effort, visa restrictions have been loosened, allowing visitors from many countries to stay in the province visa-free for 30 days. It was even reported that the Chinese government was mulling legalizing gambling in Hainan as a way of drawing in more tourists.

However, the local government went too far last year, releasing a three-year plan aimed at increasing the number of foreign visitors which included the proposal to create special zones where foreign tourists would be able to access websites outside the Great Fireweall like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

The proposal went viral, drawing comparisons to the China of a century ago where foreigners enjoyed special rights including being exempt from the jurisdiction of local Chinese law. It was soon removed from the government’s website.

Hello Kitty in the Middle Kingdom

This actually won’t be China’s first Hello Kitty theme park, which was actually opened back in 2015 in Anji county, Zhejiang province, about 200 km from Shanghai. It’s supposed to be quite the experience.

Meanwhile, an indoor Hello Kitty theme park opened in downtown Shanghai last year. Called “Hello Kitty Shanghai Times,” the theme park spans three stories of the Shimao Plaza shopping mall on East Nanjing Road, and takes visitors on a Hello Kitty-style tour of three important eras in Shanghai’s history — the 1920s/30s, the 1980s, and today.