While domestic tourism in China is booming, measures to facilitate foreigners' visits to China, the continuous expansion of visa-free "friend circle", and the acceleration of international flight recovery have been continuously introduced. The pace of recovery of inbound and outbound tourism is gradually accelerating. With the development of global economy and trade, cross-border personnel flow is active. It is expected that the Spring Festival in 2024 will usher in a new wave of inbound and outbound tourists.
China continues to introduce a number of measures to facilitate entry
Since 2023, China has successively introduced a number of entry facilitation measures. In July 2023, China resumed the unilateral visa-free policy for Singapore and Brunei. On December 1, China piloted the unilateral visa-free policy for six countries including France and Germany.
In the first month of visa-free implementation, the number of entry tourists from the six countries accounted for over 50%
In January, a total of 118,000 people from the six countries entered China visa-free with ordinary passports, accounting for 55.1% of the total number of entries from the six countries in the same period. The enthusiasm of foreign tourists to visit China is rising.
Five new measures to further facilitate foreigners to come to China
On January 11, 2024, China announced five measures to facilitate foreigners to come to China, including relaxing the conditions for foreigners to apply for port visas, simplifying the application materials for foreigners' visa documents in China, and further opening up the bottlenecks related to foreigners' business, study and tourism in China.
Experts: China's inbound tourism market has great potential for growth
Experts said that there is huge potential for the development of inbound tourism in China. Statistics show that in 2019, foreign tourists brought in $77.1 billion in tourism revenue, accounting for only 0.5% of GDP. If China's inbound tourism is increased to the international median, that is, accounting for 1.5% of GDP, it will bring nearly 1.3 trillion yuan of growth space.
The visa-free "friend circle" is continuously expanding in both directions
A number of countries have been continuously optimizing their visa policies for Chinese citizens, and the visa-free "friend circle" continues to expand. Thailand will implement permanent visa-free access for Chinese citizens from March 1, 2024. On the basis of increasing flights, Singapore will strengthen personnel exchanges between the two countries through a 30-day visa-free arrangement. Malaysia will implement a visa-free entry for Chinese citizens within 30 days from December 2023.
The speedy recovery of international flights is welcoming a new peak of entry and exit
The resumption of international flights is accelerating. By the end of 2023, China's international passenger scheduled flights will be restored to about 62.8% of the pre-epidemic level. During the Spring Festival in 2024, with the increase in the willingness to enter and exit the country, a new wave of inbound and outbound tourists will be expected.
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
Editor Ⅱ: Wu Dan
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong
