Sophie Yu and Casey Hall
BEIJING (Reuters) – Italian Guilherme Carvalho, who visited China for the first time this month, said one of the main reasons for his visit was the country’s policy of revoking entry permits for some tourists after the pandemic.
Previously, all foreign tourists had to go through the tedious process of applying for a Chinese visa. Now, tourists from more than a dozen countries can fly in and stay for up to 15 days.
“I never expected to feel so safe,” said Carvalho of his visit to Shanghai. “Everyone is so kind.”
Carvalho is not alone: Chinese authorities are pushing to attract foreign tourists to boost the economy and sagging consumption, with thousands of visitors flocking to China, spurred by visa policies and easier access to China’s native digital payment services.
According to data from Trip.com, China’s largest online travel agency, as of June 24, bookings from several countries under visa policies, including France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia and Thailand, had increased 150% year-on-year.
Bookings for July and August are also expected to increase.
“We are very excited to see this trend. A lot of people had the wrong idea before coming to China, but when they actually come here, they feel that a city like Shanghai is very safe and very clean,” said Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com.
Since December, China has allowed visa-free entry to tourists from several countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Poland.
Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia have also signed agreements with Beijing to facilitate visa-free travel.
Yvette Thompson, head of sales and marketing for Australia and New Zealand at travel agent Intrepid Travel, said tour sales increased 133% in the week that China announced visa-free travel for visitors from Australia and New Zealand compared to the previous week.
“Due to COVID-19, visas have become an even more complicated issue for travellers, so I think removing that complexity is a good move,” she said.
Long-term recovery
The recent surge in tourists comes after China closed its borders in early 2020 to combat the COVID-19 outbreak and is set to keep them closed until early 2023.
However, despite the tightening of visa exemption policies, the number of tourists visiting China has fallen significantly compared to pre-pandemic levels.
According to official tourism data, a total of 49.1 million international tourists visited China in 2019, more than a third of whom were for sightseeing or leisure. International tourism receipts for that year reached $131.3 billion.
According to the National Immigration Administration, the number of foreigners entering China in the first half of 2024 fell sharply to 14.6 million, of which 8.5 million entered without a visa, accounting for just over half of the total.
China’s international tourism receipts data has not been released since 2019.
Travel agents said they expect more international tourists to visit next year as global travel demand and flight schedules recover further to pre-pandemic levels.
But China needs to do more than offer visa exemptions to encourage foreigners to enter the country, experts say.
Geopolitical tensions, a government that tolerates no dissent and a sometimes belligerent portrayal of China in some Western media are scaring some tourists away, and two knife attacks against foreigners last month have raised safety concerns.
China also must compete for attention with Japan, which is experiencing a tourism boom thanks to a weak yen.
“The more we talk about the reasons to go to China – its diverse landscape, its history, the difference between imperial Beijing and futuristic Shanghai – the quicker I think the negative reputation will disappear,” travel agent Thomson said.
Another potential hurdle for foreigners is China’s vast digital infrastructure.
Payments for everything from transport tickets to restaurant reservations to tourist entrance fees are made via QR codes linked to local payment apps such as WeChat and Alipay, making everyday transactions difficult for foreign bank cardholders.
China has allowed foreign bank cards to be linked to Alipay and WeChat, but system and language barriers remain major issues.
“I can’t imagine how a foreigner who doesn’t have Chinese payment tools and doesn’t speak Chinese can deal with these issues,” said Liang Honglin, a China academic based in Glasgow who is visiting her native Xinjiang this month with her Irish husband.
(Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing and Casey Hall in Shanghai; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Miral Fahmy)
