BEIJING: With the holiday rush approaching, China’s inbound and outbound travel continues to boom this summer, featuring culture, sport events and coolness.

Analysts said that the development of inbound and outbound tourism will inject vitality into China’s economic development and directly stimulate tourism consumption while driving the prosperity of related industries, such as catering, accommodation, transportation and retail. Meanwhile, more jobs will be created and more business opportunities will be provided for local people.

In the first half of the year, various industries related to tourism were integrated, and coordinated development was achieved. The added value of the service industry, including the culture and sports industry, is expected to account for more than 10 percent of the GDP of the first half of 2024, Jiang Yiyi, Vice President of the School of Leisure Sports and Tourism at Beijing Sport University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

With high temperatures hitting many cities, Chinese
tourists’ growing preference for avoiding the summer heat has unlocked the huge potential of many lesser-known domestic tourist attractions.

Thanks to a series of visa-free policies implemented by Beijing, more and more foreign tourists are visiting China, making “China Travel” popular on social media platforms.

Interest in China has been increasing globally since the country expanded its unilateral visa-free travel policy, with 14 countries and regions added to the arrangement from November 2023 until the present. In the first quarter of 2024, there was a significant 400 percent growth in inbound travel to China, driven by the benefits of such visa-free policies, according to a report sent from Trip.com to the Global Times.

From January to May this year, Trip.com has recorded a significant upward trajectory in flight search volumes from Australia to China, with a notable 154 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

Source: Emirates News Agency