China has implemented a slew of measures including visa-exemption for citizens from certain countries and visa-free entry of foreign tourist groups aboard cruise ships via all cruise ship ports along the country's coastline, to enhance travel convenience for international visitors.
China has adopted a visa-free transit policy to citizens from some countries for a 72/144-hour stay.
And since earlier this year, the country has implemented a visa-free policy that exempts many ordinary passport holders of several European and Southeast Asian countries from the time-consuming and costly obligation.
Its efforts have partly paid off.
In the first half of this year, 397,000 foreign tourists, or 40 times that of the same period last year, enjoyed visa-free entry into Shanghai.
During the same period, the number of foreign tourists entering an airport in China's southern megacity of Guangzhou visa-free reached 294,000, 10.5 times that of the same period last year.
On June 29, a British tourist entering China through the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport successfully applied for a 144-hour transit visa-free policy.
"Very, very convenient. We can get the best flight and see beautiful China," said Joe.
Meanwhile, border inspection departments have stepped up efforts to facilitate customs clearance procedures for foreign visitors.
The Guangzhou port provides multilingual translation for passengers, and the Beijing port distributes foreigner entry registration cards to all airlines. And currently, the average time taken by major airports and ports across the country to do immigration procedure and customs inspection on a passenger in transit has been reduced from six minutes to two minutes.
"We help to clear the challenges facing foreigners when they travel to China for business, study and tourism. We actively promote 14 airlines to use electronic boarding passes for customs clearance, and simultaneously realize paperless customs clearance for passengers. We launched a pilot program allowing foreigners to use self-service kiosks to print out entry cards, to reduce congestion and queues caused by foreign passengers filling out application forms," said Lyu Naipeng, deputy director of the border inspection department under the Beijing border inspection station.
Another measure to offer convenience to overseas travelers is a policy allowing visa-free entry of foreign tourist groups aboard cruise ships via all cruise ship ports along the country's coastline.
On May 15, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) announced that tourist groups each consisting of two foreigners or more, and organized or received by Chinese travel agencies, can enter China visa free on board cruise ships via the cruise ports in 13 Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Sanya.
The tourists can stay in China for no longer than 15 days. While in China, they can visit coastal provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions as well as Beijing.
On June 27, cruise ship Adora Mediterranean berthed at Qingdao City, east China's Shandong Province. On June 28, Shanghai welcomed cruise ship The World, the first foreign cruise ship which arrived in the port after the new policy came into enforced. On June 29, cruise ship MSC Bellissima berthed at Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province.
Nearly 10,000 foreign tourists have enjoyed the convenience brought by the new policy, which has driven up the business of Chinese travel agencies.
"The new policy has given a boost to the marketing and sales of our inland tour routes, and brought passengers convenience during customs clearance," said Wang Xu, manager of a travel agency in Shanghai.
Between January and June of this year, nearly 9,000 passengers from nearly 80 countries and regions including France, Russia and the United States visited Tianjin Port in north China, and Shanghai Cruise Port handled more than 100,000 foreigner trips.
With the implementation of the new policy, the Tianjin International Cruise Home Port is expected to receive more than 80 cruise ships and Shanghai will receive more than 180 cruise ships in the second half of the year.
China enhances convenience for int'l travelers
