Policies bolster inbound travel

Foreign tourists take selfies with the Terracotta Warriors at pit No 1 of the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on Thursday, the first day of the five-day May Day holiday. (Zhang Tianzhu/For China Daily)

China's visa-waiver policies continued to provide impetus for inbound travel during the just concluded May Day holiday, with the number of foreigners entering China visa-free seeing a significant increase, statistics from the National Immigration Administration show.

During the five-day holiday, which concluded on Monday, China recorded more than 10.89 million cross-border passenger trips, a year-on-year increase of 28.7 percent, the administration said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Of those trips, more than 1.11 million were made by foreigners, which was 43.1 percent more than the same period last year. In addition, as many as 380,000 foreign entries were made under the visa-free policy, a year-on-year increase of 72.7 percent.

The number of cross-border trips made by residents of the Chinese mainland increased 21.2 percent year-on-year, while visits by residents of China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan rose 37.1 percent.

Border inspection authorities across China issued travel forecasts and advisories to help people better arrange their trips during the holiday, the administration said, adding that sufficient passages were opened to ensure smooth inspection clearance.

Ports in Beijing recorded 42,000 inbound trips made by foreigners during the holiday, a 66.4 percent year-on-year increase, according to statistics released on Tuesday by the Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection.

Visa requirements were waived for 55 percent of those trips, thanks to bilateral visa-exemption agreements, China's unilateral visa-free policies or its 240-hour visa-free transit arrangement.

Beijing Daxing International Airport recorded more than 10,000 inbound trips by foreigners, twice as many as during the same period last year.

Syed Mamduh Syed Othman, a Malaysian tourist who came to China visa-free, told China Daily at the airport on Friday that he was on a six-day trip to Beijing.

China and Malaysia, which have adopted visa-free policies for each other's citizens, signed a mutual visa-exemption agreement in April.

The 30-year-old Malaysian said his last visit to China was made when he was 15.

"I heard China has improved a lot of infrastructure," he said, adding that this time he would like to see the changes for himself, besides visiting typical destinations such as the Forbidden City and the Great Wall while in Beijing.

Marie Pollet-Villard, a 27-year-old French woman, arrived at the airport visa-free on Friday. She said she and her friend were planning to take a train to the border area between China and Mongolia, where they would begin a bike trip in Mongolia.

France is among the countries covered by China's unilateral visa-free policy. It is also one of the countries that enjoy China's 240-hour visa-free transit arrangement.

Pollet-Villard said the visa-free entry made her trip to China "very easy", and she had spent only about 15 minutes clearing immigration and customs at the airport.

Inbound tourism continued to thrive during the holiday, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a statement on Tuesday.

Myanmar, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom were among the major sources of inbound tourists, the ministry said.

Outbound tourism also remained popular during the holiday period, with countries including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia being major destinations, according to the ministry.