In 2024, my country will continue to optimize transit visa exemption, regional entry visa exemption, port visa and other policies, further expand the scope of unilateral visa exemption and mutual visa exemption, and continue to improve the convenience for foreigners to come to and stay in China. In the first 11 months of 2024, 29.218 million foreigners entered the country at various ports, a year-on-year increase of 86.2%. Among them, 17.446 million entered through visa-free entry, a year-on-year increase of 123.3%, which has effectively promoted the development of tourism, transportation, catering and other industries.
Facilitate personnel exchanges
On December 17, 2024, the National Immigration Administration announced to further relax and optimize the visa-free transit policy for foreigners, extending their domestic stay time from the original 72 hours and 144 hours to 240 hours, and the total number of ports where the policy is applicable has been increased from the original 39 increased to 60, and the total number of applicable provinces increased from 19 to 24.
The major favorable policies at the end of the year have written a vivid footnote that China’s door to opening up is opening wider and wider. In the past year, my country has successively made policy arrangements to expand visa-free entry into Hainan for people from 59 countries, and visa-free entry for foreign tourist groups on cruise ships. The visa-free “circle of friends” has continued to expand; it has launched “relaxing the conditions for foreigners coming to China to apply for port visas” Five new measures to facilitate foreigners coming to China have made it a reality for foreign tourists to come “whenever they say they want”.
Various policies are popular at home and abroad. On the international Internet, media traffic with the theme of “China Travel” exceeded 1 billion. Taking the 72/144-hour transit visa-free policy as an example, the number of foreigners applying this policy to China in 2024 will increase by 132.9% year-on-year. “More than 80% of the people left before the expiration of the time limit. Many foreign friends hope to have more time to travel to more places.” said Mao Xu, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the National Immigration Administration.
After the 72/144-hour transit visa exemption was upgraded to 240 hours, foreign tourists not only stayed longer, but also expanded their activity areas significantly. Some central and western regions with strong demand for inbound tourism and good management and service foundations were included in the scope of the policy. Foreign tourists can move across provinces and plan routes more flexibly. The value of transit visa exemption and the appeal of China travel are increasing.
As of December 17, 2024, China has achieved comprehensive mutual exemption with 25 countries, implemented a unilateral visa exemption policy on a trial basis with 38 countries, and implemented a transit visa exemption policy with 54 countries. The comprehensive, high-level, and wide-area regional linkage opening pattern has been accelerated to realize, injecting new momentum into high-level opening up and high-quality development. Mao Xu said that the National Immigration Administration will continue to release visa-free policy dividends to further facilitate exchanges between Chinese and foreign personnel.
Expand and enrich the tourism market
Corresponding to the popularity of the “China Travel” entry is the ever-heating tourism market.
In May 2024, the National Immigration Administration decided to fully implement the visa-free policy for foreign tourist groups to enter the country by cruise ship in China’s coastal provinces. Foreign tourist groups that take cruises and are organized and received by domestic travel agencies can enter the country as a whole group without visas from cruise ports in 13 cities. Mao Xu said that the full implementation of cruise visa exemption is to promote the development of the cruise economy and cruise industry, enrich inbound tourism forms, and enhance new economic momentum.
“The introduction of the visa-free policy will help accelerate the process of regional tourism integration cooperation and promote the coordinated development of all-region tourism.” Chen Nan, a professor at the School of Culture and Tourism of Henan University, believes that inbound tourism plays an important role in upgrading the tourism market and will promote tourism products and Improve service quality, stimulate tourism supply-side innovation, and promote tourist destination brand building.
The driving effect of the visa-free policy is transmitted to upstream and downstream enterprises in the tourism industry chain. “There are many conveniences in developing inbound tourism business during the policy bonus period, and the market potential is huge.” Beijing Liurenyou International Travel Agency Co., Ltd. has accelerated the development of inbound business. Jia Jianqiang, the company’s founder and CEO, told reporters that there are both inbound tourism inquiries and orders. Significant growth.
In order to expand the inbound tourism market with greater efforts, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will launch activities such as the “Hundred European Travel Agents Come to China” and the “Hello! China” Asian Travel Agents China Tour in 2024, and invite travel agents from many countries to visit China. Tourism products and routes. In Chen Nan’s view, relevant activities show overseas travel agents the new changes and developments in the Chinese tourism market, which will help boost their confidence in the Chinese tourism market.
Shi Zeyi, deputy director of the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will guide provinces to strengthen regional linkage, use major port cities as hubs, connect node cities, combine points, lines, and surfaces to launch more high-quality tourism products and Excellent line.
Promote the upgrading of consumption structure
Improving the level of travel convenience for foreign tourists is an important supporting measure to maximize the effectiveness of the visa-free policy. In January 2024, the National Immigration Administration launched five measures, including relaxing the conditions for applying for port visas and processing visa extensions, replacements, and reissues nearby, to further smoothen the channels for foreigners to come to China. In the first 11 months of 2024, the number of port visas issued increased by 92.9% year-on-year.
Cities that have entered the visa-free scope have continuously improved their tourism infrastructure to create convenience for foreign tourists in travel, payment, communication, accommodation and other aspects. Shanghai has 57,000 merchants and more than 85,000 terminals that support overseas bank card acceptance. Beijing is the first to implement “direct swiping” of overseas bank cards to take the subway, and Chongqing’s key foreign-related hotels have full coverage of foreign currency exchange services. At the same time, Guangzhou holds an inbound consumption season, and Tianjin promotes the development of the “Cruise+” business format to further innovate inbound consumption scenarios.
In the first 11 months of 2024, the number of foreigners entering from the above-mentioned five cities reached 8.898 million, a year-on-year increase of 107.3%, and the growth rate was 21.1 percentage points higher than the national average. Inbound foreigners from these five cities accounted for 30.5% of the country’s total, and their total retail sales of consumer goods accounted for more than one-eighth of the country’s total.
A longer visa-free stay time and a larger scope of visa-free activities mean that more inbound “traffic” is converted into economic “increment”. “Inbound tourism can drive tourism consumption such as food, housing, transportation, shopping and entertainment, stimulate cross-border service consumption, promote cultural experience economic consumption, and promote the upgrading of the tourism consumption structure.” Chen Nan said.
The “China Inbound Tourism Development Trends and Prospects” report shows that while the number of arrivals and tourism expenditures in my country are growing steadily, the satisfaction of foreign tourists is also steadily improving. Yang Qi, deputy director of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce, said that policies and measures to support the cultivation and construction of international consumption center cities will be promoted, the inbound consumption environment will be optimized, and the quality of consumer supply will be improved.
Looking forward to 2025, as the benefits of the visa-free policy continue to be released, more places will share tourism resources, create economies of scale, improve the level of openness, develop an export-oriented economy, connect with customers from all over the world, and win new opportunities. (Economic Daily reporter Zeng Shiyang)
[Editor in charge: Wu Haoxuan]
