Foreigners made 13.6m visa-free trips to China in H1, up 54% year-on-year

Immigration management authorities across China recorded as many as 13.64 million visa-free inbound trips made by foreigners in the first half of this year, a 53.9 percent year-on-year increase.

The National Immigration Administration, which released the statistics on Wednesday, said that visa-free trips accounted for 71.2 percent of all the inbound trips made by foreigners in the first half of this year.

During the first six months, foreigners made about 38 million trips into and out of China, a 30.2 percent year-on-year increase.

Also, the authorities recorded a total of 333 million cross-border trips, which was 15.8 percent more than the same period last year.

This year, China has introduced a series of measures to facilitate cross-border travel and attract more foreign visitors.

For example, it included Indonesia in the list of countries eligible for its visa-free transit policy, and allowed tourist groups from countries of the Southeast Asian Nations to stay in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, for up to six days without a visa after entering the province through designated ports.