China’s Inbound Tourism Surges on Visa Liberalisation, Industry Scales Up for Trillion-Yuan Market Potential

As per domestic mainstream Chinese media reports, matchmaking events linking international travel operators and local tourism partners have rolled out across Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin and other core inbound travel hubs from late May through early June, riding on sustained dividends from expanded visa exemption arrangements and streamlined cross-border payment services that unlock robust growth momentum for China’s inbound tourism sector.

Jamie, a Canadian travel trader undertaking his second commercial inspection trip to China, voiced upbeat sentiments over fresh industry collaboration prospects. Having built new partnerships with multiple Chinese local travel operators during his stay, the overseas trader is set to co-develop bespoke cultural experience itineraries covering Beijing and Guilin within the current calendar year to expand his overseas travel business footprint.

Regarded as a pivotal soft export category, inbound travel serves dual economic functions by spurring domestic consumption and trimming China’s services trade deficit while refining the overall composition of services commerce, according to industry research from Beijing International Studies University’s Tourism Industry Institute. Official statistical figures put China’s travel service exports at USD 55.16 billion for 2025, hitting an all-time historic high with a 49.1 per cent year-on-year surge; the reading stands 1.6 times the volume recorded in 2019 and easily outpaces the 13.9 per cent annual expansion logged across the country’s full services export basket over the same timeframe.

China Tourism Academy research notes the nation’s inbound tourism expansion has transitioned toward quality-focused steady expansion, with double-digit yearly growth pencilled in for the ongoing year. Ongoing tweaks to visa-free entry rules, cross-border payment frameworks and foreign visitor accommodation standards help spread inbound tourist flows beyond top-tier metropolitan centres into county-level destinations nationwide.

Per research papers issued by the Institute of International Trade under the Ministry of Commerce of China, inbound tourism revenue accounts for less than 0.5 per cent of China’s total gross domestic product at present, compared with over 10 per cent in Thailand and a bracket ranging from 1 per cent to 3 per cent across most European and North American economies. Such numerical disparity signals untapped market expansion potential worth between CNY 1 trillion and CNY 3 trillion waiting to be gradually unlocked in the medium term.

Separate projections released by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) outline that China’s travel and tourism sector will contribute more than CNY 27 trillion to national economic output by 2035, with inbound visitor consumption set to climb to roughly CNY 1.5 trillion within the same timeline.

Driven by the sizeable latent market space, enterprises across China’s tourism value chain have accelerated market entry into inbound travel operations over recent years. Corporate registry data from Qichacha records more than 100,000 China-based enterprises with core inbound tourism business scopes; newly registered firms in this niche jumped 153.05 per cent annually in 2023, followed by another 21,500 newly incorporated operators over the subsequent two years in a clear upward trajectory.

Operators spanning online travel platforms, international hotel conglomerates, traditional travel agencies and duty-free retailers have overhauled product portfolios and upgraded multilingual international service capabilities to capture emerging inbound market gains. Leading domestic tourism conglomerates ramp up product development and global market layout to secure new profit growth avenues amid the sector’s upswing.

Ctrip recently unveiled a five-year investment blueprint committing CNY 15 billion into global outbound marketing campaigns, targeting 200 million overseas inbound arrivals into China within the planned investment cycle. Senior management from the group highlights China boasts abundant premium tourism resources yet remains underpromoted across global consumer markets, with upcoming corporate priorities centred on overseas brand promotion and innovative travel product development.

Spring Airlines aligns its network expansion roadmap with nationwide tourism policy guidelines to add more cross-border flight routes steadily, while UTour Travel builds its business around wholesale travel, retail sales and integrated marketing divisions to branch into inbound travel, domestic leisure and high-end niche tourism segments, boosting resource control alongside diversified operational development. China Duty Free Group, amid rising inbound visitor footfall, concentrates operational resources across four core verticals: cross-border duty-free retail