China’s visa-free travel list continues to grow, with five more European countries added to the list.
Citizens of Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovakia and Finland have been granted visa-free entry to the Asian country.
Tourists from these countries as well as South Korea will be able to enter China without visas from November 8, 2024 to December 31, 2025.
This comes after the addition of Norway was announced in September and Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Greece, Portugal and Slovenia in October. This brings the total number of European countries granted visa-free access to 24. In July, travellers from Poland, Australia and New Zealand were also granted unrestricted entry to China until the end of 2025.
The scheme was announced in phases from the beginning of 2024, and various European countries and Malaysia have also been granted visa-free access. The programme aims to attract more people to China for business and tourism purposes, and to promote exchanges between Chinese citizens and foreigners.
The full list of European countries now includes Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. Tourists from these countries will be allowed to enter China for short stays without a visa until the end of next year.
The aim is to “promote the qualitative development of exchanges between Chinese and foreign personnel and open up the outside world at a high level,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a briefing on the initial announcement in November. Under the trial programme, visa-free entry will be granted for up to 15 days.
China’s international travel recovery continues
According to statistics, the country recorded 35.5 million foreign tourists in 2023, up from 97.7 million before the pandemic. Experts estimate that in the three years that the country was closed to the outside world due to the pandemic, the loss of revenue due to the lack of tourists totalled $362bn.The target for 2024 is to reach a level of 50 per cent of total entry in 2019.
Europe is recovering faster than some other markets, according to travel websites. Trip.com statistics show that growth in total bookings from Europe to China is up more than 6 times in 2023 compared to 2022 and almost 29% compared to 2019. Germany and the UK are in the top 10 most active inbound markets. Shanghai remains China’s most popular destination for Europeans, followed by Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Encouraging entry works. According to Trip.com, the most recent holiday – the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, which starts at the end of January and lasts officially 15 days but actually a whole month – saw twice as many tourists from the named 11 European countries travelling to China as in 2019.
China is also doing a lot to facilitate payments, infrastructure development. But according to experts, while the country has made significant strides in developing advanced technology and transport infrastructure for domestic travel, foreign tourists often face problems travelling around the country. For example, to book seats on high-speed trains or museum tickets, it is necessary to use the local WeChat service.
Many establishments accept WeChat Pay or AliPay exclusively, putting foreign travellers in a difficult position if they rely solely on cash or credit cards. And many hotels in China are not allowed to accept foreign travellers at all.
