Entrepreneur cycles to success with electric bike tours in Beijing

Dou Junjie is a co-founder of a travel agency that offers electric bike tours of Beijing for both Chinese and foreigners, a niche that has seen a resurgence thanks to China's policies encouraging inbound tourism.

Shortly after graduating from Beijing International Studies University as a hotel management major in 2001, Dou got his first job as an English-language tour guide and has stayed in the sector ever since.

The 46-year-old launched his own business in 2015, initially developing a smartphone application that provides English-language audio tours for about 30 popular scenic areas in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an, Shaanxi province.

Dou's company also took part in a number of activities promoting tourism in Beijing, including one in which foreign internet celebrities were invited to visit the city. He has also participated in promotional events in other countries.

Business flourished until the end of 2019, when the COVID-19 epidemic began to take hold. He was forced to shut down his company in March 2020.

Several months later, he pivoted to offering tour guides for visitors to museums in China's capital city.

But he soon found himself facing stiff competition from other travel agencies, including those that were previously focused on international travel but then turned to domestic museum tourism due to stagnating business.

Undeterred, Dou decided to shift to cycling tours in Beijing, carving out a niche in the local tourism market.

The turning point came in 2023, when China optimized its COVID-19 control measures and started taking a series of major steps to reinvigorate cross-border travel.

Dou said his company began to receive foreign customers in September and has since taken people from the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany and a number of other countries on bike tours.

The visa-free policies China has adopted and extended over the past year have sparked interest from foreign tourists, Dou said, adding that his company will likely see an increase in overseas customers in the coming year as a result.

Having engaged in inbound tourism for more than two decades, Dou said he is still deeply moved by the warm interactions between his foreign customers and Chinese people.

"I remember when I was accompanying a group of musicians from some European countries during their cycling tour in October last year, many local people in Beijing would come to greet us with smiles when we stopped to wait for green lights," he said.

When they rode to Zhengyici Theater, a venue for China's traditional Kunqu Opera, a musician who plays guitar was attracted by a guqin (a seven-stringed traditional musical instrument) that was placed on the stage. He decided to give it a try.

"It was very interesting seeing him make sounds with the guqin, an intangible cultural heritage of China," he said. "At that moment, I really felt the positive exchange between Chinese and Western cultures.

"The power of cultures and the exchange and integration of different cultures, this is what tourism is truly about," Dou said.