China's expanded visa waiver policies drive foreign visitors beyond big cities

Foreign visitors to China are venturing well beyond the country's gateway cities, with shopping hubs, border cities and inland destinations attracting growing numbers of overseas travelers as expanded visa waiver policies continue to boost inbound tourism.

Online travel platform Qunar said on Friday that foreign passport holders booked flights to 160 Chinese cities through its platform during the first half of 2026, up from a year earlier and covering destinations stretching from the China-Russia border city of Heihe in Heilongjiang province to the western city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

While Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong province remained the most popular destinations, secondary cities posted some of the strongest growth.

Chongqing recorded a 30 percent year-on-year increase in inbound flight bookings, the fastest growth among China's top 10 inbound destinations, while Changsha in Hunan, Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Zhengzhou in Henan and Xi'an in Shaanxi all posted double-digit gains, according to Qunar.

The data suggest inbound travel is increasingly extending beyond traditional sightseeing to include shopping and business trips.

Yiwu in Zhejiang, known as the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities, saw inbound flight bookings by foreign travelers jump 62 percent from a year earlier, while Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei electronics market ranked among China's 10 most popular hotel booking areas for overseas visitors.

Hainan province also continued to benefit from its island-wide special customs operations. Haikou entered Qunar's top 10 inbound destinations in the first half, while Qionghai, home to the annual Boao Forum for Asia, climbed sharply in the rankings as inbound flight bookings surged.

The platform said foreign travelers also increasingly visited smaller destinations, with 20 cities, including Daocheng in Sichuan and Jinggangshan in Jiangxi, appearing among its inbound destinations for the first time.

On the source market side, Qunar said inbound travelers came from 158 countries and regions and 575 overseas cities in the first six months of the year, with 11 new source countries added from a year earlier.

Countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative recorded the fastest growth. Visitor numbers from Mongolia rose 150 percent year-on-year, while arrivals from Uzbekistan increased 120 percent.

European markets also continued to recover, helped by China's expanding unilateral visa-free entry policy. Visitors from Milan rose nearly 70 percent, while those from Madrid increased by more than 50 percent. European travelers stayed in hotels for more than three days on average, roughly one day longer than the average inbound visitor, Qunar said.

The travel platform said this momentum has continued into the summer peak travel season. Among source markets, arrivals from Greece rose 9.5-fold year-on-year, while visitors from Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Sweden, Finland and Mexico more than tripled or doubled during the holiday booking period.