Inbound tourism is benefiting from a new wave of growth as China continues to expand its visa-free policy, with the number of foreign tourists entering the country steadily increasing year on year. In the first half of 2026, China ranked first in Asia in terms of the number of foreign visitors to Japan.
Local entrepreneurs and tourism players, including the Muma team, which specializes in immersive local travel experiences for foreign travelers, are seizing the opportunity by creating locally-focused trips for young foreign travelers, with routes to places like Xuanyuan in western Sichuan province.
Foreign tourists are no longer satisfied with just checking out famous landmarks. Increasingly, they are looking for immersive everyday experiences that allow them to experience China like a local. The natural and vivid moments where languages and cultures intersect are one of the distinctive attractions of inbound travel.
The profile of inbound travelers is also changing, moving away from traditional large group tours to solo travelers and small groups, while demand is evolving from sightseeing and landmark check-ins to deeper cultural experiences.
These changes on the demand side are forcing the industry to restructure its supply chain. Until now, travel agencies have primarily focused on providing local services. Today, customer acquisition, regulatory compliance, and cross-border service all pose new challenges.
Meanwhile, suppliers such as hotels and tourist attractions are increasingly working directly with individual international travelers, exposing gaps in areas such as international card acceptance, passport verification, and multilingual services. Ironically, China’s highly developed digital ecosystem may itself create a digital divide for international travelers. While visa-free access solves the question “Can I enter China?”, the real test for inbound tourists lies in whether the entire service ecosystem can effectively serve international travelers from start to finish.
China’s tourism industry is undergoing a highly compressed development cycle, and OTA platforms are no longer just transaction intermediaries.
They are increasingly building an “invisible infrastructure” for inbound tourism, systematically eliminating friction across inbound travel.
Take Trip.com groups, for example. Meanwhile, the platform is investing in global brand marketing, working with ambassadors and running campaigns abroad to actively introduce Chinese destinations to international audiences.
Meanwhile, it is partnering with airlines to lower booking barriers for international travelers and launching short-stay airport experience programs to reduce friction that can prevent international travelers from choosing China.
Trip.com is also addressing inbound service gaps in key touchpoints such as accommodations, attractions, and payments.
Translated information for hundreds of thousands of hotels into more than a dozen languages and established inbound hotel service standards and traveler demand tags.
We have introduced self-service ticketing at hundreds of attractions using passports and a multilingual official website. We have also built a cross-border payment system that supports multiple currencies, international bank cards, and foreign e-wallets.
From motivating international travelers to visit China, to booking, arrival, lodging, sightseeing, and payment, this end-to-end digital infrastructure is gradually closing the service gap across the inbound travel experience.