With China realizing its immense potential as a global tourism destination, more and more cities have brought visa-free transit services to make visits easy and hassle-free.
From Jan 1, five more cities started offering 144-hour visa-free services to travelers from 53 countries – Qingdao, Shandong province; Xiamen, Fujian province; Wuhan, Hubei province; Chengdu, Sichuan province; and Kunming, Yunnan province.
China is the largest outbound market and the top spender in international tourism. It ranks fourth on the UNWTO list of most-visited countries, with the number of international tourists going past 60.7 million in 2017. France topped the list with 86.9 million.
China National Tourism Administration said that China’s foreign exchange revenue was $123.4 billion in 2017, with spending by foreign tourists reaching $69.5 billion.
China has the potential to become the top destination globally by 2030. The WTTC has said that China will be the largest travel and tourism economy by 2028, attracting more than 100 million overseas visitors.
In 2017, Chinese tourists made more than 130 million outbound trips and spent $258 billion on international travel, according to the UNWTO.
China has 53 World Heritage sites, the maximum in Asia and second only to Italy globally. However, it ranked 15th in the World Economic Forum’s global tourism competitiveness rankings in 2017.
