Beijing opens its doors wider to foreign guests, but also tightens control of the tourism market
In recent months, Beijing has been pursuing a dual tourism strategy that at first glance may seem contradictory, but is in reality set out very clearly. On the one hand, the Chinese capital is strongly facilitating the arrival of international travellers through broader visa benefits, easier entry into the country, better transport and payment infrastructure, and new products intended for foreign guests. On the other hand, city and state authorities are simultaneously strengthening oversight of travel agencies, guides, promotional practices, and package sales models in order to curb forced shopping, hidden costs, and non-transparent business practices. In practice, this means that Beijing does not want only a higher number of arrivals, but also a different growth profile: more quality visits, higher spending per guest, fewer complaints, and a stronger international reputation as a destination opening to the world, but without easing its stance toward the grey zone of tourism business.
Such a shift is not accidental. Since 2024 and 2025, Chinese institutions have gradually been building a model in which inbound tourism is viewed as an important part of the broader economic recovery, service consumption, and the country's international positioning. Beijing has a special place in this strategy because it is not only the political and cultural centre of the country, but also an entry point for a large number of foreign business guests, delegations, transit passengers, and tourists who want to spend several days in China for the first time. For visitors planning a longer stay, the
accommodation offers in Beijing may also be useful, especially in districts near airports, the historic core, and main transport routes, because city authorities are concentrating part of the new services for international guests precisely there.
Opening through visa facilitations and easier entry into the country
At the centre of the whole story is China's policy of facilitating entry. The most visible change concerns the expansion and optimisation of the 240-hour visa-free transit regime, which allows travellers from a growing number of countries to stay up to ten days in certain Chinese regions, including Beijing, on condition that they continue their journey to a third country or region. In this way, the former model of a short transit stay has evolved into a tool for genuine tourist retention, because ten days is no longer just an administrative facilitation, but a sufficiently long period for sightseeing, business meetings, cultural programmes, and short regional trips.
An additional boost came through broader national measures. In the second half of 2025 and at the beginning of 2026, China continued to expand the network of mutual visa exemptions and unilateral visa-free entries for some countries, while at the same time increasing the number of entry points covered by the 240-hour transit regime. This is especially important for Beijing because it competes with other Asian metropolises that have long lived from a combination of transfer traffic, city break visits, and major international events. In such circumstances, a tourist who previously might have chosen only to transfer can now become a multi-day guest, and this automatically changes the picture of spending in hotels, restaurants, museums, shops, and transport. That is why the city is increasingly emphasising the need for quality stay planning, so for some visitors the
accommodation options near event venues are also relevant, especially when they are coming for congresses, fairs, or cultural events.
New growth in the number of foreign guests shows that the measures are working
That the facilitations have not remained only at the level of a political message is also shown by the figures from 2025. In the first quarter, Beijing recorded 891 thousand inbound visitors, which is growth of more than 61 percent compared with the same period a year earlier. Of that, 744 thousand were foreign tourists, while the rest were visitors from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. In the period from January to April, the number of inbound tourists reached 1.46 million, with growth of 57.1 percent year on year, while tourism spending reached 1.9 billion US dollars. Such growth is not merely a statistical figure that looks good in official presentations, but a clear signal that Beijing has entered a new phase of recovery in international traffic.
For city authorities, it is especially important that the growth in the number of arrivals is accompanied by growth in spending. In the tourism economy, what matters is not only how many travellers passed through the city, but how long they actually stayed there, what they consumed, and whether they moved beyond the best-known points such as the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, or the Great Wall of China. That is precisely why Beijing is increasingly promoting less standardised products as well, including walks through the hutongs, night programmes, thematic gastronomic tours, bicycle rides along the Central Axis, and tours of suburban areas. In that sense, the city is trying to move from a “single postcard” model to a model of a comprehensive urban experience, which is an important change for both visitors and the local economy.
Arrival services are becoming part of tourism policy, not just logistics
One of the most obvious problems for foreign guests in China for a long time was not only entering the country, but also finding their way immediately after landing. For many visitors, the first challenges were currency exchange, mobile payments, SIM cards, transport cards, internet connectivity, and basic information about transport and reservations. That is why, at the beginning of 2025, Beijing opened integrated service points for foreign travellers in the international zones of Capital and Daxing airports. At these points, it is possible to obtain more than twenty types of services, from financial and communication services to tourism and transport services, including help with withdrawing cash, exchanging currency, downloading local payment applications, and booking tourist services.
Such a move may sound technical, but in practice it has a strong impact on the experience of the destination. In modern tourism, the first hour after arrival often determines the overall tone of the journey. If a guest quickly resolves connectivity, transport, and payment, there is a greater likelihood that they will spend more, move around more independently, and stay longer. If, however, they immediately encounter a series of obstacles, the destination may leave an impression of being closed and complicated, regardless of how worthy its attractions are of a visit. That is precisely why Beijing has begun to treat the entire chain of services, from border control to moving around the city, as an integral part of tourism policy, and not as secondary logistics.
Payments, transport, and digital services are becoming key to competitiveness
For many foreign travellers, China was long a country of fascinating technological everyday life, but also a place where practical navigation could be demanding if the visitor relied only on foreign cards or usual international applications. In recent months, Beijing has therefore worked intensively in the area of payment accessibility. Among the more visible moves is the establishment of the Visa-UnionPay zone along the Beijing Central Axis, conceived as a demonstration area in which acceptance of foreign cards is expanded, POS terminals are upgraded, easier cash withdrawals are enabled, and various payment models adapted to the habits of international guests are introduced.
In addition, city authorities and associated institutions in 2026 are further promoting contactless payments in the metro through major card networks, as well as smaller operational facilitations such as more favourable or simpler mobile transactions for foreign users. At first glance, these are details, but it is precisely such details that determine whether a foreign guest will experience Beijing as an open city or as a destination where every everyday action is an administrative test. In the context of the growth of city break and transit tourism, this is very important, because short-term visitors value speed and simplicity the most. Whoever can buy a metro ticket, pay for a meal, and get to the hotel within a few minutes will more easily decide that they need one more night in the city, so the
accommodation options for visitors to Beijing are therefore becoming an increasingly important part of overall travel planning.
The city wants more than sightseeing of famous landmarks
At the same time, Beijing is not building its new tourism policy only on facilitating arrivals, but also on reshaping what it offers to foreign guests once they have already arrived in the city. In 2025, ten new thematic routes for inbound tourism were presented, and official plans placed emphasis on a more diverse and “deeper” experience of the city. This includes gastronomic routes, encounters with intangible heritage, evening content, walks through older urban quarters, and itineraries that try to present Beijing as a modern metropolis, and not only as a collection of historical landmarks.
Such an approach also has economic logic. A tourist who visits only the best-known attractions usually spends limited time in the city and spends within a narrow circle of already developed locations. In contrast, a tourist who enters neighbourhoods, restaurants, cultural spaces, smaller museums, local shops, and peripheral attractions distributes spending more widely and leaves a greater local impact. That is why city authorities speak of “high-quality” inbound tourism, a term that does not mean only greater comfort for foreigners, but also greater economic usability of each arrival. In that sense, Beijing is trying to increase value per visit, and not only the raw statistics of entries.
Increased oversight of agencies shows the other side of the strategy
At the same time as opening to the world, China and Beijing have strengthened oversight of the way tourism products are sold and carried out. During 2025, a multi-agency campaign was launched against illegal practices in tourism, involving the ministry responsible for culture and tourism, the police, and market supervision bodies. The focus is on forced shopping, extremely cheap packages with concealed additional costs, operating without a licence, false advertising, and price manipulation. The authorities have also published lists of companies and individuals accused of violating the rules, with the message that oversight will continue during the peak of the summer season.
For an international observer, this is important information because it shows that the Chinese authorities do not want to base tourism growth on uncontrolled expansion of intermediaries and aggressive sales models. The problem of so-called cheap packages with later forced shopping is not specific only to China, but in large and rapidly growing markets it can seriously damage a destination's reputation. A tourist who feels cheated does not harm only an individual agency but the whole city, because they pass on their experience through reviews, social networks, and the media. In that sense, increased oversight is not only a repressive measure, but also an attempt to protect Beijing's brand as an international destination.
Transparency is becoming a prerequisite for further growth
It is precisely the issue of trust that is key to understanding the entire policy. The city can invest in visa facilitations, airports, marketing, and digital tools, but if the visitor assesses that the package market is opaque, that prices are hidden, or that guides are pushing them toward predetermined shops, then the effect of all other measures quickly melts away. That is why increased oversight should be read as an attempt to establish clearer rules of the game for the private sector. Beijing clearly wants a destination in which tourism spending increases, but through more standardised and more transparent services.
This is especially important at a moment when the city is more aggressively targeting business travellers, the congress segment, short transit guests, and tourists with higher purchasing power. Such visitors usually have a lower threshold of tolerance for improvisation and unclear costs. They are attracted not only by the destination's content, but also by the predictability of the experience. In that sense, stricter oversight of travel organisers and field practices is not the opposite of tourism opening, but its necessary prerequisite.
Beijing positions itself as an entry point and a model example
When everything is added up, Beijing is not trying only to increase the number of foreign arrivals, but wants to establish itself as a model example of how a large Chinese city should welcome international guests. This is evident from official development plans, but also from a series of practical interventions that are being introduced almost in parallel: from airport service points, new routes, and payment solutions, to stronger market oversight and modernisation of entry procedures. The national level has additionally supported this direction with a package of measures to strengthen spending by foreign visitors, and plans for the period 2026–2030 announced further improvement of services related to visas, tax refunds, accommodation, and transport.
For a city that wants to be the “first stop” of a foreign traveller in China, this is no small task. Beijing must combine security and openness, administrative control and a sense of welcome, historical heritage and modern infrastructure. It will succeed in this only if the international guest gets the feeling that the city is at the same time large, functional, and fair. If current trends continue, Beijing could in the coming years further strengthen its position as one of the main Asian entry hubs for international tourism, but it is precisely the level of real transparency on the ground that will show how sustainable this ambitious strategy truly is.
Sources:- National Immigration Administration – official announcement on the expansion of 240-hour visa-free transit to 55 countries and the rules for stays of up to 10 days (link)- The State Council of the People's Republic of China / Xinhua – data on the growth of inbound tourism in Beijing in the first quarter of 2025 and city measures to facilitate arrivals (link)- The State Council of the People's Republic of China / Xinhua – information on integrated service points for foreign travellers at Capital and Daxing airports (link)- Beijing Municipal Government / Beijing International Web Portal – overview of measures to facilitate inbound tourism, including metro payments and other service updates from 2026 (link)- Beijing Municipal Government – official announcement on the Visa-UnionPay zone along the Beijing Central Axis and the expansion of foreign card acceptance (link)- China Daily – report from the conference on the development of inbound tourism in Beijing, with data on 22 measures and growth in arrivals and spending from January to April 2025 (link)- The State Council of the People's Republic of China / China Daily – overview of the national campaign against forced shopping, operating without a licence, and false advertising in the tourism sector (link)- The State Council of the People's Republic of China / Xinhua – announcement of further improvement of visa, transport, accommodation, and tax services for inbound tourism in the period 2026–2030 (link)- The State Council of the People's Republic of China / Xinhua – package of measures by nine state bodies to encourage spending by foreign visitors and the export of tourism services in 2026 (link)
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