China pavilion promotes inbound tourism, visa facilitation at Arabian Travel Market

The 2025 Arabian Travel Market opened on Monday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with the China Pavilion showcasing the country's strong inbound tourism potential.

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism leads the country's participation at the Arabian Travel Market, the largest professional tourism exhibition in the Middle East and North Africa. 

The China Pavilion brings together cultural and tourism departments from 13 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, and 26 tourism-related enterprises, presenting a comprehensive view of China's travel landscape under the theme "Nihao (hello)! China". 

Focusing on business matchmaking between Chinese and international travel operators, the Chinese exhibitors are keen to attract more international visitors by demonstrating their latest upgraded tourism services, cultural experiences, and streamlined visa procedures. The emphasis is placed on three core concepts, "Tourism + Culture," "Tourism + Aviation," and "Tourism + Technology."   

Currently, China grants unilateral visa-free access to citizens of 38 countries and has extended its visa-free transit policy for 54 countries to up to 240 hours. As China's "visa-free circle of friends" continues to expand, inbound tourism is experiencing steady growth.   

"In the past few years, China has optimized a series of visa policies, making it more convenient for foreigners to travel to and do business in the country. I have personally visited China multiple times for business negotiations and have deeply felt the positive changes," said Jasem, a tourism company representative. 

"I think by allowing more and more tourists to come and visit China more freely, it's certainly going to improve the amount of tourists that you end up getting. Myself, I started going to China a few years ago, and I'm trying to get there once or twice a year.  Once you get over a slight language barrier and you get to see all the amazing ancient artifacts that are there, the touristic sites, it's definitely a place that people will come to time and time again," said another tourism company representative James.

China pavilion promotes inbound tourism, visa facilitation at Arabian Travel Market

China has allocated a second batch of ultra-long special treasury bond funds to support equipment upgrades, as authorities step up efforts to boost investment, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Thursday.

The commission said 91.5 billion yuan, or about 13.4 billion U.S. dollars, has been earmarked for more than 6,700 projects across 16 sectors.

The projects span industrial and energy systems, transport and logistics, public services such as healthcare, education and tourism, as well as environmental and recycling initiatives, and are expected to drive total investment of over 380 billion yuan, or roughly 56 billion U.S. dollars.

The funding will also support the replacement of aging trucks, electric city buses and outdated agricultural machinery. Including earlier allocations, the total funding under the program has reached 185.1 billion yuan this year (over 27 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for 92 percent of the annual quota.

Driven by the policy, investment in equipment and tools rose 13.9 percent year on year in the first quarter, accelerating by 2.4 percentage points from the January-February period and contributing 2.3 percentage points to overall investment growth.

The commission said it will work with relevant departments to strengthen oversight, improve full-cycle fund management, and accelerate project implementation and fund disbursement, to ensure fund efficiency.

China allocates 2nd batch of special bond funds for equipment upgrades