China's inbound tourism is projected to grow strongly this year as visa exemption policies steadily expand.
The National Immigration Administration (NIA) announced on Monday that the country's 144-hour visa-free transit policy has been expanded to three more entry ports, taking the number of Chinese ports covered by the policy to 37.
A significant growth in overseas traveler numbers has been boosted by new visa policies and convenient payment services with data showing ports across the country welcoming over 14.6 million entries by foreign nationals in the first half of the year, a year-on-year growth of 152.7 percent.
With the summer travel season in full swing, megacities like Shanghai are seeing a good mix of domestic and foreign visitors at popular tourist attractions.
Shanghai's Yuyuan Garden for instance saw a visitor-flow of over 800,000 over the past week, with nearly 10 percent of them foreign travelers.
"I traveled with my travel group two weeks in China and we started in Beijing. Then we went south to Xi'an, Drum Tower, Bell Tower, then to Guilin to see the beautiful landscape," said a traveler from Germany.
"This is my first time in China. It was amazing. I've seen a lot of fabulous things here and I like it," said a traveler from Lebanon.
"So far in July, in half a month our store has received five travel groups. The customers mainly purchased calligraphy arts and paintings, as well as tea. So far our sales in June and July have increased by 20 to 30 percent compared with the sales in March and April," said Huang Yimin, a gallery manager in Yuyuan.
The convenience of universal payment services also encouraged foreign tourists to explore hidden gems in the city with over 50,000 shops in Shanghai accepting foreign methods of payment.
In the first half of the year, foreign visitors in Shanghai spent around 7.8 billion yuan (roughly 1.07 billion in U.S. dollars), with mobile payments accounting for 2.3 billion yuan, an increase of more than eight times compared with the same period last year.
"I really like that it's a quite a cosmopolitan city. It's quite diverse," said a traveler from South Africa.
According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, more than 4,000 cultural and tourism activities will be held across the country during the summer. These include more than 100 events scheduled for the Shanghai summer international consumption season to further boost the city's tourism market.
China welcomes more foreign visitors as visa exemptions expand
China welcomes more foreign visitors as visa exemptions expand
