The numbers tell a compelling story. In 2025, China recorded a historic 697 million inbound and outbound border crossings — a 14.2 percent year-on-year increase that shattered all previous records. International visitors alone made over 82 million crossings, up 26.4 percent from 2024, while visa-free arrivals surged by an extraordinary 49.5 percent to reach 30.08 million. As 2026 unfolds, analysts and industry leaders are asking the same question: is China on the cusp of becoming the world's most visited destination?
The single most transformative policy shift driving China's inbound tourism renaissance is the systematic expansion of visa-free access. By the end of 2025, China had extended unilateral visa-free entry to citizens of 48 countries, up from just a handful two years prior, while mutual visa-exemption agreements now cover 29 nations. In mid-February 2026, the United Kingdom and Canada were added to the visa-free list — a significant diplomatic signal that China is actively courting Western visitors.
The 240-hour (10-day) visa-free transit programme has also been expanded to 65 entry points including airports, seaports, and rail hubs, making China an attractive stopover for long-haul travellers connecting between Asia-Pacific and Europe or the Americas. The practical impact has been immediate: average border clearance times have dropped to under eight minutes following the launch of an online arrival-card system in late 2025, according to the National Immigration Administration.
For travellers who once viewed China as bureaucratically complex to visit, these changes represent a fundamental shift. As U.S. travel content creator Raimee — who visited Beijing and Xi'an under the transit visa-free policy — put it: China is now "extremely safe" and "incredibly convenient."
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | YoY Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total border crossings (inbound + outbound) | 610 million | 697 million | +14.2% |
| International visitor crossings | 65 million | 82 million | +26.4% |
| Visa-free arrivals | 20.1 million | 30.08 million | +49.5% |
| Visa-free countries (unilateral) | 38 | 48 | +26.3% |
| 240-hour transit entry points | 54 | 65 | +20.4% |
| Trip.com inbound travellers served | ~12 million | ~20 million | +67% |
Sources: National Immigration Administration of China; Trip.com Group Q4 2025 Earnings; Xinhua News Agency
Industry forecasts for 2026 are bullish. According to World Tourism Forum Institute projections, China's inbound tourism market is expected to welcome 42.5 million international visitors in 2026, generating approximately $85 billion in revenue. Looking further ahead, by 2035, spending by international visitors in China is projected to reach approximately 1.5 trillion yuan (around $217 billion), according to China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Several structural drivers underpin this optimism.
Airline capacity expansion is a leading indicator. Carriers have added more than 80 new international frequencies to China's major hubs for the summer 2026 season, betting on sustained demand. Trip.com Group CEO Sun Jie described inbound tourism as a "key growth driver," noting that overseas revenue — including inbound travel — accounted for around 40 percent of total revenue in 2025, with international hotel revenue jumping nearly 70 percent year-on-year in Q4 2025 alone.
Digital infrastructure improvements are removing practical barriers that once deterred international visitors. As of September 2025, the international version of Alipay had partnered with 40 e-wallet providers across Asia-Pacific, allowing tourists to use their home payment apps at 150 million merchants across China. In Shenzhen, taxis are equipped with AI real-time translators supporting over 140 languages. Zhejiang's "Zhejiang Travel" AI platform helps visitors overcome language obstacles in real time.
The Spring Festival effect offers a preview of 2026's trajectory. During the 2026 Spring Festival holiday, inbound tourist arrivals rose 23.7 percent year-on-year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Shanghai alone reported a 20 percent jump in inbound arrivals as new visa-free rules took hold.
Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen continue to dominate inbound tourism, but a notable trend in 2025 was the emergence of second-tier cities as international destinations. Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, and Guilin saw their foreign visitor numbers multiply several times over, driven by social media exposure and the growing appetite among international travellers for authentic cultural experiences beyond the traditional gateway cities.
This geographic diversification is significant for the tourism industry. It signals that China's inbound tourism appeal is no longer concentrated in a handful of megacities, but is spreading across a country of extraordinary cultural and natural diversity. For travel operators and hospitality brands, this represents both an opportunity and a planning challenge — the infrastructure and service quality in emerging destinations varies considerably.
The resurgence of China's inbound tourism market creates concrete opportunities across the travel value chain.
Online travel agencies with strong China distribution — particularly those integrated with Chinese platforms like Trip.com, Fliggy (Alibaba's travel arm), and Meituan — are well-positioned to capture the growing flow of inbound bookings. Trip.com's investment of 1 billion yuan to help more than 40 Chinese cities improve inbound reception capacity, combined with its AI translation engine processing 6 billion words annually across 25 languages, illustrates the scale of digital infrastructure being built to serve international visitors.
Hotels and accommodation providers should note that international hotel revenue on Trip.com's platform jumped nearly 70 percent year-on-year in Q4 2025. Properties that have invested in multilingual staff, international payment acceptance, and culturally adapted services are capturing disproportionate share of this growth.
Experiential tourism operators are benefiting from a shift in visitor preferences. Today's international visitor to China is increasingly seeking immersive cultural experiences — traditional cooking classes, tea ceremonies, calligraphy workshops, and access to heritage sites — rather than purely transactional sightseeing. Operators who can package and market these experiences to international audiences through digital channels are finding strong demand.
Despite the remarkable progress, several friction points continue to temper the full realisation of China's inbound tourism potential.
The visa-free policy's time-limited nature — currently running to 31 December 2026 for most countries — creates uncertainty for long-term travel planning. Travellers and corporate mobility managers must track whether Beijing renews these waivers, and trips straddling the expiry date may require standard visa applications.
Language and digital accessibility remain genuine barriers for many first-time visitors. While AI translation tools and international payment options have improved dramatically, the experience is still uneven across different cities and venues. Travellers venturing beyond the major tourist circuits may encounter environments where English signage is minimal and international payment methods are not accepted.
Geopolitical considerations continue to influence travel decisions, particularly for visitors from Western countries. While the expansion of visa-free access to the UK and Canada signals a desire for closer people-to-people ties, broader diplomatic dynamics can affect traveller confidence and corporate travel policies.
China's inbound tourism push is not simply about visitor numbers — it is part of a broader strategic reorientation. After years of prioritising outbound tourism and domestic consumption, Beijing is actively repositioning China as an open, welcoming destination for international visitors. The coordinated policy package — spanning visa liberalisation, digital payment reform, AI-powered language services, and airline route expansion — reflects a whole-of-government approach to tourism development.
For the global travel industry, the message is clear: China is back, and it is investing heavily in making the visitor experience match its ambitions. The question for travel operators, hospitality brands, and destination marketers is not whether China's inbound tourism will grow in 2026, but how quickly they can position themselves to capture their share of what is shaping up to be one of the most significant travel market recoveries of the decade.
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