In 2024, China’s tourism industry ushered in a full recovery and performed strongly, with a number of indicators reaching record highs.
According to the Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on National Economic and Social Development in 2024 (hereinafter referred to as the “Communiqué”) released by the National Bureau of Statistics on February 28, the total travel expenditure of domestic tourists last year was 5,754.3 billion yuan, an increase of 17.1% over the previous year, and an increase of 841 billion yuan over 2019, with an average per capita single travel expenditure of 1,024 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.9%, both reaching a record high.

At the same time, the communiqué also shows that in 2024, the total number of passengers transported for the year will be 17.1 billion, an increase of 3.8% over the previous year. Among them, the railway passenger traffic reached 4.31 billion, an increase of 11.9 percentage points year-on-year, and the civil aviation passenger traffic reached 730 million, an increase of 17.9 percentage points from 2023 and 10.6 percentage points higher than that of 2019.
Games, film and television have become new engines for the development of cultural tourism
The surging news found that the number of domestic trips reached 5.62 billion last year, of which 35.7% were contributed by seven national statutory holidays such as the National Day, the Spring Festival, and the “May Day”. In 2019, domestic travel accounted for 30.4% of the year.

In 2024, domestic tourism hotspots will continue to emerge, the most eye-catching of which is that cultural products such as games, TV dramas, variety shows, and concerts have become a new engine for the development of cultural tourism in many places.
First of all, in the spring, the hit of “My Altay” made the Altay region of Xinjiang a “poetry and distance” in the hearts of many people. In the week from May 13 to 19, 2024 alone, the Altay region received 1.0502 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 70.07%. According to the “China Tourism News”, the tourist attraction brought by “My Altay” has at least continued until the “National Day” holiday of that year. This wave of film and television drama popularity has also helped Xinjiang create a record-breaking result of receiving 302 million tourists in 2024.
Then in the summer, the domestic 3A game “Black Myth: Wukong” was born, which not only made global players feel the unique charm of traditional Chinese culture, but also brought fire to the realistic filming location of the game. After “Black Myth” came out of the circle, the number of tourists in scenic spots such as the Hanging Temple in Datong City, Shanxi Province, and Xiaoxitian in Xi County surged. According to preliminary statistics from the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, in 2024, the province will receive a year-on-year increase of 27.24% in domestic tourists, and the total tourism expenditure will increase by 36.03% year-on-year.
In 2024, “China Travel” will become a hot word
According to the Communiqué, in 2024, there will be 131.9 million inbound tourists, and the total cost of inbound tourists will be 94.2 billion US dollars, an increase of 60.8% and 77.8% respectively from 2023.

This growth is closely related to China’s comprehensive relaxation and optimization of the visa-free policy last year, and the introduction of a series of policies and measures to facilitate foreigners to come to China. By the end of 2024, China has achieved full mutual exemption with 25 countries, piloted a unilateral visa-free policy for 38 countries, and implemented a transit visa-free policy for 54 countries.
After the introduction of policies such as 72/144-hour transit visa-free, visa-free entry for foreign tour groups on cruise ships, and 240-hour transit visa-free, the domestic inbound tourism market has recovered rapidly, and the number of inbound tourists has increased significantly. With the increase in tourists coming to China, “China Travel” has become a popular entry on the Internet in 2024.
According to the statistics of the National Immigration Administration, in 2024, a total of 20.115 million visa-free foreigners will enter the country nationwide, an increase of 112.3% year-on-year. In particular, after the comprehensive relaxation and optimization of the transit visa-free policy, the number of people applying the transit visa-free policy to China increased by 29.5% month-on-month.
How much influence does the visa-free policy have on foreigners traveling to China?
Taking the data disclosed by the Shanghai Culture and Tourism Bureau as an example, since November 8 last year, China has exempted visas to nine countries including South Korea and Slovakia, and “flying to China after work on Friday” has quickly become a trend among South Korean tourists. Compared to 36,000 South Korean tourists coming to Shanghai for overnight stays in September 2024, this figure has reached 71,000 in December of the same year.
South Korean tourists also overtook the United States and Japan in the last two months of 2024, becoming the largest source of inbound tourists to Shanghai in 2024 with a total of more than 446,000 overnight tourists throughout the year.
