At Chengdu's People's Park in Sichuan province, Czech visitor Jaromir Mynar found himself studying sheets of paper covered with the details of single men and women.
He had arrived at the park's "matchmaking corner", a place where people gather and exchange information in search of potential partners.
Having already visited China's must-see attractions, Mynar had been impressed by the country's grand history. What had been harder to glimpse was how people actually live in China today.
That was why he approached Yu Xiaohan, 33, who runs an agency offering routes tailored to suit travelers' interests, from ethnic minority cultural exploration to hands-on intangible cultural heritage activities.
Yu hopes that such trips can help them break through cultural barriers and build connections with the people they meet along the way.
For Austrian tourist Robert Oehler, that happened during a journey through the Aba Tibetan-Qiang autonomous prefecture in Sichuan.
When a Qiang man invited him into his home, Oehler initially felt reserved because of the cultural gap between them. Gradually, however, he began to feel at ease with his hosts.
"You can visit beautiful places anywhere, but meeting people who make you feel comfortable and welcome is something truly special," he said.
Such experiences are attracting growing interest. Yu said that his niche travel plans are receiving a surge in inquiries and bookings through domestic and overseas platforms, including RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, and Tripadvisor.
This comes as China continues to expand visa-free entry for foreign visitors.
According to figures from the National Immigration Administration, foreign nationals made 11.6 million visits to China in the third quarter of the year, of whom 8.99 million entered visa-free.
As of September, China's unilateral visa-free entry policy had been extended to 50 countries, a big increase compared with the six countries covered when the pilot program began in 2023.
Easier entry is also changing what some overseas travelers want from China.
As visitors return after seeing the country's best-known attractions, some are looking beyond conventional sightseeing for experiences bringing them closer to everyday life in China. For travel planners, that appetite is creating another possibility: combining tourism with services from other sectors.
In Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, 26-year-old Wu Shan is exploring one such combination — tourism and healthcare.
Wu left the finance sector for tourism in 2025, as China's inbound travel boom was gathering momentum. Among her clients was Paris Goodman Onothome, a Nigerian entrepreneur, for whom she organized an itinerary combining a health checkup at a Hangzhou hospital with visits to urban landmarks such as Tianmuli, an art and commercial complex.
"I felt the need to try something different, especially a place that also offers traditional Chinese medicine," Onothome said.
At the hospital, Onothome received a full health screening involving modern medical tests as well as TCM treatments.
By the time he headed to Tianmuli for coffee later that day, all of his test results were ready.
The speed surprised him. What impressed him most, he said, was the "quality service with attention to detail", as well as the friendly staff and affordability.
Nine departments, led by the Ministry of Commerce, issued a new measure in March to boost inbound consumption through tourism.
For planners such as Yu and Wu, the evolution of inbound tourism is creating room to rethink what a trip to China can look like. For visitors, the China they are looking for is no longer just the one on a must-see list. It is the one encountered in ordinary lives, unexpected conversations and experiences they could not have planned from a guidebook.
