From June 9, 2025, China will implement a trial visa-free policy for people holding ordinary passports from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain. So far, the number of countries that apply the unilateral visa-free policy to China has expanded to 47. The implementation of this policy marks the further expansion of China's visa-free "circle of friends" and brings new opportunities to the inbound tourism market.
In recent years, China has continued to promote high-level opening up to the outside world and continuously expand the scope of visa-free countries. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously stated that the visa-free "list" has continued to grow, demonstrating China's firm determination to continue to promote high-level opening up to the outside world. The implementation of this policy not only lowers the threshold for foreign tourists to enter the country, but also enhances China's attractiveness and competitiveness as a tourist destination.
With the continuous optimization of the visa-free policy, more and more foreign tourists choose to travel to China. In 2024, China received a total of 131.9 million inbound tourists, a year-on-year increase of 61%, recovering to more than 90% of 2019. Among them, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are still the primary inbound tourism market, with 104.96 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 54%. In addition, the pace of recovery of the inbound tourism market for foreigners has accelerated, with 26.94 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 96%.
Various places are also actively improving tourism convenience and service quality to attract more international tourists. For example, Shanghai promotes the application of the "single window" platform at cruise ports to improve customs clearance efficiency, and pilots the launch of the "foreigner entry card" self-service printing terminal at the airport hub to simplify the entry process. Beijing has issued the "Beijing Special Action Plan for Optimizing Inbound Tourism Services", launching 22 measures around products, publicity, services and guarantees to improve inbound tourism services.
In the future, China will continue to make good use of the visa-free policy and the port foreigner group tourism visa policy, develop a more diversified inbound tourism channel combination, upgrade customs clearance, communications, payment, ticket purchase, duty-free tax refund and other facilitation measures, and launch more inbound tourism boutique routes. With the implementation of these policies, China's inbound tourism market will usher in greater development space.