Nation's travel landscape enters new era

Encouraged by positive stories from a family member and his own Mandarin studies, Eisinger traveled to China with high expectations. The trip exceeded them. His experience reflects a broader rebound in inbound tourism, driven by easier entry, improved travel services and a growing stream of firsthand accounts that are changing how overseas visitors see China.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China recorded more than 30 million visa-free entries by foreign nationals last year, up 49.5 percent year-on-year. Visa-free travelers accounted for more than 73 percent of all foreign arrivals, highlighting the central role of expanding visa-free access in the recovery.

China now offers unilateral visa-free entry to citizens of 50 countries and has mutual visa exemption agreements with another 29. Austria is among the countries covered by the unilateral policy, making trips such as Eisinger's considerably easier to plan.

Han Feng, head of marketing at Trip.com Group, said the expansion has fundamentally changed how overseas travelers view China by removing a major obstacle to a visit. "This change has reduced planning barriers for many potential travelers," she said.

According to the company's China Inbound Tourism Development Report, visitors from visa-free countries accounted for most of the growth, led by Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Australia. But easier entry is only the beginning of the story.

Across social media platforms such as TikTok and RedNote — also known as Xiaohongshu in China — foreign travelers are sharing videos of China's high-speed trains, mobile payments, ancient temples, mountain landscapes and futuristic skylines. The accumulation of these firsthand accounts is giving overseas audiences a more immediate picture of everyday travel in China and, in many cases, turning curiosity into bookings.

"Social media has become a powerful driver of inbound travel demand," Han said. "Authentic traveler-generated content, especially the #ChinaTravel trend on TikTok and Xiaohongshu, has successfully turned global curiosity into firm bookings."

Mainstream television has reinforced that visibility. Last year, the fifth series of the Race Across the World began airing on BBC, with contestants setting off from the Great Wall before traveling across the country and continuing through Nepal and India. British broadcaster and adventurer Ben Fogle also spent six weeks traveling across China to film the three-part Channel 5 series China with Ben Fogle.

Having never visited the Chinese mainland before, Fogle admitted arriving with preconceived ideas. "I have to say I went with a stereotype of what my experience was going to be like, and you all surprised me," he said.

"I was surprised, I was challenged, but most of all I was charmed," he said after the journey, adding the trip allowed him to "scratch beneath the surface" and discover "a real China".