Our institute's inbound tourism research group released the "China Inbound Tourism High-quality Development Report"

On September 10, 2024, the 2024 Inbound Tourism High-Quality Development Conference, co-hosted by the China Tourism Academy, the Publicity Department of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, the Anhui Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and the Hefei Municipal People's Government, was held in Hefei. Associate Researcher Liu Xiangyan, head of inbound tourism research at the China Tourism Academy, released the "China Inbound Tourism High-Quality Development Report" on behalf of the research team, with the theme of "Growth and Innovation".

1. Policy guarantee: Inbound tourism returns to the national strategic system

The central government has taken many measures to improve the convenience of inbound tourism. As the beginning of my country's modern tourism service industry, inbound tourism is an important yardstick for measuring the level of my country's tourism competitiveness. At present, promoting the revitalization of inbound tourism and promoting the high-quality development of inbound tourism are the inherent meaning of building a tourism power. In September 2023, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Measures on Unleashing the Potential of Tourism Consumption and Promoting the High-quality Development of the Tourism Industry", proposing to strengthen inbound tourism work and carry out and implement inbound tourism promotion measures in terms of visas, international flights, and travel convenience in China.

In terms of visas, my country has adopted an unprecedented entry visa facilitation policy since the second half of last year. The scope of unilateral visa-free countries will be gradually expanded in December 2023, mid-March 2024 and the end of June respectively. So far, my country has implemented a unilateral visa-free entry policy for 16 countries. Together with the 24 countries that have full mutual visa exemption with my country, this means that citizens of 40 countries can come to China without a visa with ordinary passports. my country also implements a 144-hour transit visa-free policy for 54 countries. Excluding the 22 countries that have already enjoyed visa-free entry, citizens of 32 countries can enter the specified areas with ordinary passports through this policy without a visa. From May 15, 2024, foreign tourist groups that come to China by cruise ship and are organized and received by domestic travel agencies can enter China from 13 cruise ports along the coast of my country without a visa. Following the implementation of the 144-hour visa-free policy for foreigners from Hong Kong and Macao to enter Guangdong (10 cities) in October 2023, the scope of this policy has been expanded to Hainan Province since the end of July this year.

International flights continue to recover further. According to statistics, in the first half of 2024, my country will have flights to 73 countries and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, which is basically the same as the same period in 2019. my country's international passenger scheduled flights have recovered to about 70% of the same period in 2019, which is a certain improvement over the 60% recovery level at the end of 2023.

The convenience of foreign tourists in payment, consumption, accommodation registration and other aspects in China will be further improved. In March 2024, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience", increasing the deployment of foreign currency exchange business outlets and foreign card swiping equipment to improve the payment convenience of inbound tourists. In July 2024, the Ministry of Commerce and seven other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Facilitate Accommodation for Overseas Personnel to Serve High-Level Opening Up", facilitating the accommodation registration of overseas personnel and improving their accommodation experience.

Local governments have responded positively to promote the high-quality development of inbound tourism. Shanghai is building the first stop for inbound tourism. Beijing, Hainan, Anhui and other provinces and cities have held inbound tourism conferences or activities, strengthened contact and cooperation with international travel agencies, and discussed the development trend of inbound tourism with the government, industry, academia and research. In addition, many provinces and cities, including Anhui Province, have proposed to build a world-class tourist destination. Anhui Province is comprehensively promoting the construction of Dahuangshan as a world-class tourist destination to build a foundation for the high-quality development of inbound tourism.

II. Market foundation: Inbound tourism is entering a new stage of prosperity and development

The recovery and development trend of the inbound tourism market continues to improve. According to the latest data from the National Immigration Administration, in the first half of 2024, the total number of entry and exit of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents and foreigners checked by immigration management agencies across the country recovered to 92% of the same period in 2019. The data for the first and second quarters exceeded that of each quarter in 2023, and the performance of the second quarter was better than that of the first quarter. In the first half of 2024, there were 14.635 million foreigners entering my country. Excluding non-tourists such as those working, studying abroad, and transportation passengers, it is preliminarily estimated that there were about 11 million foreign tourists coming to China, which has recovered to about 70% of the same period in 2019.

According to the latest statistics from the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, in the first half of 2024, the scale of inbound tourist reception in the four cities has recovered to more than 70% on average compared with the same period in 2019, higher than 65% in the first quarter. Among them, the recovery level of Beijing and Shenzhen has reached more than 80%, and the pace of recovery has steadily accelerated.

The destination structure for inbound tourists in Anhui Province is being optimized. Huangshan has always been the top inbound tourist destination city in Anhui Province, and Hefei's status as an inbound tourist destination city is expected to be further enhanced. Statistics over the years show that the contribution of Huangshan's inbound tourist reception to Anhui Province has generally been on a downward trend, while Hefei's contribution has increased in the past few years, from 10% before the epidemic to 20%.

Combining existing statistical data and travel agent survey feedback, the inbound tourism market presents the following characteristics:

The trend of individual tourists is becoming more prominent. Driven by entry-facilitation policies such as visa exemption and payment, coupled with the general pursuit of personalized and high-quality experience by international tourists, and the fact that social media has enabled overseas people to better understand China and Chinese tourism, the trend of individual tourists in inbound tourism is becoming more prominent.

Driven by the above factors, the inbound tourists' experience content is more in-depth and life-like. Many travel agents continue to update or add cultural experience activities to existing route products, leading inbound tourists to go deep into the community and carry out cultural experience activities with intangible cultural heritage inheritors. Some travel agents also reported that more and more inbound tourists choose travel photography services, and even go to community nail salons to customize their favorite nail patterns.

More inbound tourists are heading to relatively niche destinations. Also affected by factors such as visa convenience, changes in demand, and information dissemination on social media, coupled with the slowdown in global economic growth, international tourists tend to avoid popular tourist destinations and choose to go to alternative destinations with fewer people or lower costs. Some inbound travel agents reported that foreign tourists visiting Beijing would take the initiative to ask to add Chengde to their itineraries.

International tourists' travel decisions are more influenced by social media. Residents of countries around the world have a deeper understanding of China and Chinese tourism through social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Recently, many foreign bloggers regard "China Travel" as a traffic entrance, further promoting the trend of individualization of my country's inbound tourism market, life-oriented experience content, and "downward" destinations. Objectively, it also makes the preferences of domestic and inbound tourists more similar. City Walk and City Ride, which are familiar to foreign tourists, are loved by more Chinese tourists. Experience projects such as ancient costume travel photography, which are loved by Chinese tourists, are also chosen by more and more inbound tourists.

III. Innovation-driven: the cornerstone of high-quality development of inbound tourism

The high-quality development of inbound tourism requires the full implementation of the new development concept and the path of innovative development. Innovation is not a blind attempt. Destination management departments and market players should continuously innovate in policies, systems, products and services, and brand marketing based on a deep understanding of the market demand trends for inbound tourism.

Continue to improve the convenience of inbound tourism. Continue to explore policy and system innovations in visas, payments, accommodation registration, ticket booking, multilingual services, and departure tax refunds to further improve the convenience of inbound tourists traveling to China. In terms of visa facilitation, for long-distance source markets with generally longer annual holidays, it is recommended to extend the stay period of the unilateral visa-free policy from 15 days to 30 days. Further play the radiation effect of the 144-hour transit visa-free policy, reduce the difficulty for foreign tourists to understand and implement the policy domestically, and allow transit tourists to enter port A and exit port B, and no longer specify the stay area separately.

All kinds of market players should continue to subvert the status quo and bring forth new ideas around user needs. Professor Christensen proposed the "User Goal Theory" in his book "The Innovator's Task", believing that the key to successful innovation is to jump out of one's own products to see what goals users need to achieve in a certain scenario, and what kind of products or categories are needed to achieve these goals. This provides ideas for disruptive innovation. For example, for business guests who come to Hefei on business trips, they want to use half a day or an evening of leisure time to walk around the surrounding area after business activities. In this scenario, what he needs more is fragmented or customized travel services, which may be a visit to the Anhui Museum, or a local performance at night. If he is a food lover, he will hope that a food expert will take him to taste all kinds of local food at one time. Meeting the user goals in this scenario brings product innovation.

In a certain scenario, satisfying user goals often involves multiple or even cross-category products and services, especially travel services. The process of travel service providers satisfying tourists' goals is mostly accompanied by cross-border cooperation, hiring experts, technicians, and senior players from various industries to jointly develop and implement new route products. At the same time, various overseas community organizations, such as various outdoor clubs, have become important channels for acquiring customers.

For most inbound travel service providers, in addition to trying disruptive innovation, they can develop new markets based on existing main products to achieve architectural innovation, such as developing markets along the "Belt and Road", targeting European visa-free entry countries, and developing cross-border travel products such as Japan + China or Southeast Asia + China with overseas partners. Of course, they can also make some improvements to existing products and continue to focus on incremental innovation. Innovation begins with imitation, so why not start by imitating our competitors, discover innovative inspiration in the process of imitation, and achieve product and service innovation.

For many suppliers of accommodation, catering, shopping, entertainment, etc. in tourist destinations, serving inbound tourists may cost more in terms of personnel training, facilities and equipment, language communication, etc., and they tend to prefer serving domestic tourists, which has led to what we call the "crowding out" of the inbound tourism market by the domestic tourism market. In addition to the fact that destination management departments should actively guide and support tourism suppliers to serve the inbound tourism development strategy, suppliers themselves should also realize that in this era where users are more involved in production, the more diverse the users they serve and the greater the differences in their needs, the more they can discover innovative inspirations in the process of serving tourists, find new business growth points or develop new businesses and new models, and achieve long-term success.

Tourist destinations at all levels should constantly innovate destination management and marketing. Tourist destinations are generally divided into three levels: national, provincial (regional) and city. Destinations at all levels should coordinate and cooperate with each other. The country should mainly carry out national image promotion at the brand level, and jointly launch new tourism routes and new products with provincial and municipal tourist destinations, especially urban tourist destinations and market entities, and carry out specific promotion activities.

In terms of promotional content, based on the user goal theory, we look beyond our own tourism resources to promote destinations, and add content that can help foreign tourists better understand contemporary Chinese life. In addition, with the help of "Chinese-style" movies, games, online articles, videos, etc. that have been popular overseas, such as the recent hit "Black Myth: Wukong", we integrate marketing content, guide and create online hot topics, and launch new tourism experience spaces and scenes.

In terms of publicity channels, we should attach importance to mainstream social media commonly used by young users, such as Instagram and Tik Tok, and maximize the information transmission reach rate through these platforms. In terms of sales channels, we should establish close cooperation with major travel agencies/OTAs in various countries, and through them link them with high-quality accommodation, catering, shopping, entertainment and other suppliers, as well as travel service providers and conference service providers that provide high-quality comprehensive services, so as to reach terminal travel consumers to a greater extent.

Finally, we should continue to innovate in systems and mechanisms. It is recommended to establish a national tourism promotion agency composed of professional personnel, and each province and city should establish a tourism destination management agency (DMO) according to its own situation to enhance the professional level of destination management and marketing.

Contributor | Inbound Tourism Research Group Editor | Liu Xin Source | China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) Please indicate the source for reprinting