BEIJING, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a report from China.org.cn:

Beijing's border inspection agency logged nearly 8.3 million entry and exit trips in the first half of this year, up 185% from the same period last year.

The increase has been attributed to the summer travel season, as well as to continued adjustments to entry and exit policies that facilitate travel, business, study, work, and living in China. 

The 72/144-hour visa free transit policy has been particularly well received by foreign travelers. First implemented in 2013, the policy has been recently expanded to allow travelers from 54 countries to transit through 20 cities like Beijing, Tianjin, and others without a visa for up to 144 hours. 

In the first half of the year, 307,000 foreign travelers entered Beijing without a visa, with 33,700 using the 144-hour visa-free transit, marking 10-fold and seven-fold increases year on year, respectively.

China has also begun implementing a unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from countries like Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia. This July, China extended this visa-free policy to Australia, New Zealand, and Poland. As of July 2, nearly 163,000 foreigners from 15 countries benefited by this policy had entered China visa-free.

The number of tourists traveling in groups has seen a rebound in Beijing, with over 30,000 such tourists visiting in the first half of the year, 30 times the number from the same period of last year. 

The number of mainland residents traveling through Beijing ports increased by around 2.7 times year on year to more than 5.74 million, accounting for about 70% of the total traffic.

June saw record numbers of entries and exits, with a peak of 65,000 people in a single day. The total number of entries and exits this year is expected to surpass 10 million by early August.

Beijing logs 8.3 million border entry, exit trips in H1