China's inbound tourism trips for May Day holiday surge to 173%

Driven by China's departure tax refund policy, the number of inbound tourism orders for China's five-day May Day holiday period has surged to 173 percent year on year, according to Trip.com Group, a leading online travel agency in China.

As one of the popular destinations for inbound tourism, east China's Shanghai has further optimized the departure tax refund consumption environment during the holiday to allow foreign tourists to enjoy more convenient services.

Since China launched a series of new visa-free entry and transit policies, the number of foreign tourists entering Shanghai has increased significantly. In the first quarter of this year, the city received 1.743 million international tourists, a year-on-year increase of 37.1 percent.

China has updated its tax refund policy for foreign tourists, moving from a refund-upon-departure to a refund-upon-purchase model. This change comes as more international visitors travel to China for shopping, purchasing items such as food, clothing, handicrafts, mobile phones, and computers.

Recently, the country has introduced a series of new measures to optimize payment convenience for foreign tourists. Under the new policy, the minimum purchase threshold for departure tax refunds has been reduced to 200 yuan (about $27.8) from 500 yuan.

As one of the pilot cities for the "refund-upon-purchase" policy, Shanghai currently has 587 tax refund stores, of which 284 shops offer the policy.

"In recent years, Shanghai's departure tax refund sales have always been among the highest in the country," said Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, noting that the city's tax refund stores issued 86,000 tax refund forms to foreign tourists, with sales of tax refunded goods reaching 2.37 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.6 percent.

According to Bloomberg, the World Tourism and Travel Council predicted that Chinese tourists' domestic travel spending is expected to reach $968 billion this year, up nearly 19 percent from 2024.

Virginia Messina, vice president of the council, said China's tourism industry recovered strongly last year, and the outlook is quite optimistic.

Meanwhile, a series of measures launched by China such as visa-free policies to attract foreign tourists will also be effective, Bloomberg noted. It is estimated that international tourists' consumption in China this year will reach 1.04 trillion yuan, an increase of 13 percent over 2019.

According to the Travel And Tour World magazine, China is beating the United States in global tourism by offering visa-free and simplified entry policies alongside convenient transportation and warm hospitality, which all make traveling to China more convenient and attractive for international tourists.