Foreign tourists are trickling back to China after the country loosened its visa policy to unprecedented levels.
Citizens from 74 countries can now enter China for up to 30 days without a visa, a big jump from previous regulations.
This list included Australian citizens who since November were exempt from needing a visa for stays of up 30 days, an extension of 15 days since it was first granted in July 2024.
The government has been steadily expanding visa-free entry in a bid to boost tourism, the economy and its soft power.
More than 20 million foreign visitors entered without a visa in 2024 — almost one-third of the total and more than double from the previous year, according to the National Immigration Administration.
Georgi Shavadze is a Georgian living in Austria, who visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
“This really helps people to travel because it is such a hassle to apply for a visa and go through the process,”
he said.
While most tourist sites are still packed with far more domestic tourists than foreigners, travel companies and tour guides are now bracing for a bigger influx in anticipation of summer holiday goers coming to China.
China’s government has extended the visa-free entry to 74 countiries to boost tourism. (AP: Andy Wong)
“I’m practically overwhelmed with tours and struggling to keep up,” says Gao Jun, a veteran English-speaking tour guide with more than 20 years of experience.
To meet growing demand, he launched a new business to train anyone interested in becoming an English-speaking tour guide.
“I just can’t handle them all on my own,” he said.
After lifting tough COVID-19 restrictions, China reopened its borders to tourists in early 2023, but only 13.8 million people visited in that year, less than half the 31.9 million in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.
30 days for many in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Middle East
In December 2023, China announced visa-free entry for citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia, but almost all of Europe has been added since then.
Travellers from five Latin American countries and Uzbekistan became eligible last month, followed by four in the Middle East.
The total will grow to 75 on July 16 with the addition of Azerbaijan.
About two-thirds of the countries have been granted visa-free entry on a one-year trial basis.
Almost one-third of tourists entered without a visa in 2024, more than double from the previous year, according to the National Immigration Administration. (AP: Andy Wong)
For Norwegian traveller Øystein Sporsheim, this means his family would no longer need to make two round-trip visits to the Chinese embassy in Oslo to apply for a tourist visa, a time-consuming and costly process with two children in tow.
“They don’t very often open, so it was much harder,” he said.
“The new visa policies are 100 per cent beneficial to us,” said Jenny Zhao, a managing director of WildChina, which specialises in boutique and luxury routes for international travellers.
She said business is up 50 per cent compared with before the pandemic.
While the US remains their largest source market, accounting for around 30 per cent of their current business, European travellers now make up 15 to 20 per cent of their clients, a sharp increase from less than 5 per cent before 2019, according to Zhao.
“We’re quite optimistic. We hope these benefits will continue,”
Ms Zhao said.
Trip.com Group, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said the visa-free policy has significantly boosted tourism.
Air, hotel and other bookings on their website for travel to China doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, with 75 per cent of the visitors from visa-free regions.
Transit policy an alternative to visa-free entry
No major African country is eligible for visa-free entry, despite the continent’s relatively close ties with China.
North Americans and some others in transit can enter for 10 days
Those from 10 countries not in the visa-free scheme have another option: entering China for up to 10 days if they depart for a different country than the one they came from.
Those without visa-free entry might be eligible to enter China for 10 days under a transit policy. (AP: Andy Wong)
The policy is limited to 60 ports of entry, according to the country’s National Immigration Administration.
The transit policy applies to 55 countries, but most are also on the 30-day visa-free entry list.
It does offer a more restrictive option for citizens of the 10 countries that aren’t: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, the US, and Mexico.
Aside from the UK, Sweden is the only other high-income European country that did not make the 30-day list.
Ties with China have frayed since the ruling Chinese Communist Party sentenced a Swedish book seller, Gui Minhai, to prison for 10 years in 2020.
Gui disappeared in 2015 from his seaside home in Thailand but turned up months later in police custody in mainland China.
AP
