Foreign visitors take in panoramic views at a tourist attraction in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, on June 19. WANG HUABIN/FOR CHINA DAILY
Riding the wave of growing overseas enthusiasm for China, Chinese companies are launching fresh initiatives to expand their influence and boost inbound tourism.
In a bid to make China a top destination for global travelers, Liang Jianzhang, chairman of online travel agency Trip.com announced on May 31 plans to invest 15 billion yuan ($2.21 billion) to promote Chinese culture and tourism worldwide in the coming five years, supporting the goal of attracting 200 million international tourists.
The decision comes amid growing global interest in China, with enthusiasm spanning everything from the country’s history, culture and language to its tourist attractions, technology, films, TV dramas, and video games.
Confident in its growth prospects, Liang is betting on inbound tourism as the next growth engine for China’s service sector. Boosted by a series of policy measures introduced by the Chinese government, China’s inbound tourism market has seen robust growth.
In 2025, the country recorded more than 150 million inbound tourist visits, a year-on-year increase of over 17 percent, with inbound tourism spending surpassing $130 billion, Minister of Culture and Tourism Sun Yeli was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.
According to Liang, the number of inbound tourists is expected to triple from the current levels by 2030, while average spending per visitor could rise by 60 to 70 percent, which could ultimately boost China’s GDP by 5 to 7 percent.
For Liang, inbound tourism is part of a much bigger economic story. With China’s manufacturing sector already among the world’s most competitive, he believes the country’s service exports should be valued more highly as well.
“Inbound tourism is more than ticket sales and hotel stays. It is a new growth engine capable of generating foreign exchange, stimulating consumption, creating employment and strengthening the country’s international image,” Liang said, adding that China’s inbound tourism market has the potential to become the largest in the world.
Leveraging its global resource layout and multilingual digital capabilities, Trip.com looks to continuously popularize Chinese elements in the global market.
As “China fever” sweeps the world, Weixin mini programs, operated by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, have become a go-to digital gateway for foreign visitors to China, offering a wide range of services including customs declarations, daily travel, dining expenses, and ticket purchases for attractions.
Available in 100 countries and regions worldwide, Weixin’s mini programs were used more than 5 billion times by cross-border and overseas users throughout 2025, said Yu Yuelin, manager of international partnership at Weixin Mini Program.
“We discovered strong demand for mini programs among inbound travelers. The longer they stay in China, the more frequently they use mini programs in daily life, which offers a seamless scan-and-access-all experience upon arrival,” Yu said.
According to Yu, the value of cross-border transactions via mini programs increased by more than 70 percent year-on-year in the second half of 2025, and inbound users’ spending rose by over 50 percent during the same period.
“During this year’s May Day holiday, the daily usage of mini programs by inbound tourists increased by 42 percent year-on-year,” Yu said.
By enabling platform-based multilingual translation across all mini programs, inbound travelers are able to use them in their own languages, Yu said.
“Mini programs are constantly co-creating an ecosystem that serves more users with a better experience and more efficient connectivity,” said Yu.
Weixin Mini Program claimed its monthly active users have reached 1.1 billion globally. The number in Singapore was more than 1 million as of the first half of 2025, and Australia and New Zealand have surpassed 1 million.
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