China reported a remarkable 110 million inbound and outbound travelers crossing its borders during July and August, with an average of around 1.78 million travelers per day, the country’s National Immigration Administration (NIA) recently revealed.
On August 24, China logged the highest daily number of inbound and outbound travelers at nearly 2.24 million, accounting for 97.2 percent of the historical peak.
The immigration agency also revealed that foreign visitors made a total of 10.89 million trips, a 52.8 percent increase from the same period last year. In addition, visa-free inbound trips by foreign visitors (excluding residents of border regions) surged to about 1.96 million, up 117 percent compared to the same period last year.
Visa exemptions propel tourism growth
Several factors have contributed to the surge in travelers to China this summer, most notably the country’s mutual visa exemption agreements with other countries. The 144-hour visa-free transit policy and other favorable policies also attracted more visitors for summer vacations in China this year.
Recent reports also revealed that China’s railways recorded 887 million passenger journeys from July 1 to August 31, up 6.7 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, the country’s airlines reported 137.5 million passenger trips during the same period, an 11.8 percent increase compared to a year earlier.
The Paris Olympics drove the outbound travel boom for Chinese tourists, with the number of travel bookings to Paris up 129 percent year-on-year during the summer season.
Read: 9.11 million foreign tourists visit South Korea during January and July 2024, up 66.8 percent
Foreign traveler numbers surge in H1
During the first half of 2024, the number of foreign travelers entering China rose over 150 percent as the country’s tourism sector continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to government statistics, 287 million people entered and left China between January and June of this year. Of those, 29.2 million were foreigners and 8.5 million used the visa-free entry. In 2019, nearly 98 million foreign visitors entered and left China.
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