China sees more foreign visitors, but far fewer than before COVID

Taipei, Taiwan — China says the number of foreigners entering the country in the first half of 2024 leaped by more than 150%, a huge increase for the world’s second-largest economy as it continues to recover from the COVID pandemic.

Although China’s state-run media touted the country's expanded visa-free policy as a key contributing factor, the numbers released last week tell only part of the story. The number of foreigners traveling to the country is a third of what it was in 2019.

According to Chinese government statistics, 287 million people entered and left China between January and June of this year. Of those, 29.2 million were foreigners — about 10% of the total — and just 8.5 million used visa-free entry. In 2019, nearly 98 million foreign visitors entered and left China.

When asked about the increase at a press conference earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said he was glad to see travel to China was becoming more popular and talked up the benefits of expanded visa-free travel.

Late last year, China extended visa-free travel for up to 15 days to a dozen European countries.

“As more and more countries benefit from the visa-free policy and as China adopts more measures to ease cross-border travel, ‘on-a-whim travel’ to China is becoming a reality,” Lin said. He also said the government expects more foreigners to travel to the country in the second half of the year.

Tourism experts and observers, however, say that China's grim political atmosphere, post-pandemic safety concerns and the high cost of long-distance travel are still obstacles for foreign tourists hoping to visit the country.

A German man who has lived in Shanghai for many years and did not want to be named in order to speak more freely with VOA said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s international image has declined.

“Even if European travelers are allowed to enter China without a visa, they may not be enthusiastic enough to do so,” he said.

Tang, a Taiwanese tourism scholar who didn't want to be identified because of frequent travel to China, told VOA that because inbound statistics do not distinguish between tourism and business travel, government numbers can be misleading.

He said travelers from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan — who account for more than 40% of visitors — are mostly business travelers who would come to China regardless of the visa-free policy.

Tang also said that high air ticket prices — brought on by pilot shortages, the failure to reinstate some popular routes and a general imbalance between supply and demand — are also hampering the recovery of long-distance tourism.

In a further effort to boost tourism, China expanded the 15-day visa-free entry to travelers from New Zealand and Australia starting on July 1.

China also has a 144-hour transit visa-free policy for 54 countries.

However, Tang said China's visa-free policies are unlikely to have much of an impact, especially for U.S. and European travelers.

To Europeans and Americans, he said, "China has the appeal of a mysterious and ancient country.”  But as far as that audience is concerned, he said, "the pandemic started in China. Have the concerns over China's tourism safety and health been addressed? That's the point."

Lan, a Taipei-based overseas representative of a U.S. state-level tourism bureau who did not want to reveal her identity because she is not authorized to speak on the topic, said that while Chinese culture attracts foreign tourists, China's political atmosphere has long been a key factor that keeps foreigners away.

"China has a good tourism environment, but in general, foreigners are less likely to agree with its politics," she said.

Lan said that given political tensions between the United States and China, tourism between the two countries has reached a freezing point.

In August 2023, China ended its stringent pandemic restrictions on group tours to most countries. The U.S. State Department’s current travel advisory for China is set at level three or “reconsider travel,” just one below its level four “do not travel” warning.

Lan said that right now, Americans are reluctant to visit China and Chinese tourists are staying away from the U.S. resorts where they used to flock.

VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.