Friday, December 1, 2023
People from tourism, cultural and business sectors hail China‘s visa-free entry trial.
It is for ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia.
It is for boosting cultural exchanges and foreign companies’ confidence in investing in China.
From December 1, 2023 to November 30, 2024 holders of ordinary passports from the above-listed six countries may enter China visa-free for no more than 15 days.
They may travel for business, tourism, visiting relatives and friends and transit the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on November 24.
Following the announcement, the search volume for inbound flight tickets from the six countries has increased by more than 100 percent as of 6 pm November 24 compared to November 23.
A newspaper learned from several travel agencies on Thursday that there has been no significant increase in the number of inquiries and orders placed at present.
It is after considering that planning cross-border travel would take some time.
But they said the visa-free policy has given a boost to the entire industry and the summer of 2024 is may be the time when the inbound market will reap the benefits.
Jane Sun, CEO of a travel portal told the newspaper that China’s inbound tourism has huge potential and will have at least nearly 1.3 trillion yuan ($182 billion) of growth space.
The inbound travellers will bring huge foreign exchange revenues and enhance China’s international image.
It will also boost China’s technological innovation and international competitiveness, said Liang Jianzhang, a professor at Guanghua School of Management of Peking University.
Liang said the visa-free policy is a very positive start.
If there is further improvement of other bottlenecks such as payment and internet access, the number of inbound visitors to China can be greatly increased.
Tags: china, inbound visitors, visa-free
Monday, April 29, 2024
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Monday, April 29, 2024
