Certainly it can be felt on the streets of Nanjing these days. Our city is once again “en vogue” with foreigners. After a 5-year hiatus, the number of visitors to the Southern Capital has returned, almost, to pre-Pandemic levels.
Back before COVID as the previous decade closed out, Nanjing was bringing in approximately 300,000 foreign visitors each year. But many weren’t here for long, for if they were, we would have noticed them making up about 3 percent of the population.
They were the tourists and those in town for a few days of business meetings, conferences or exhibitions. They may not have stayed long, but they did leave behind them a not insignificant chuck of cash. Hence Nanjing and many other cities have been keen to lure them back.
A multi-pronged effort of late seems to be bearing fruit. According to Beijing News, a total of 125,000 overseas visitors came to Nanjing in the first half of 2024. That’s up 121 percent on the same period last year. It’s also not entirely surprising since we were then still in some disbelief at the sudden lifting of COVID restrictions.
So how has this come to be? In part as a response to a multitude of calls, including those from this publication, the Chinese authorities have realised in the past year that it simply had to be easier to come to the Middle Kingdom.
Cumbersome visa applications and a scant international flight schedule decimated by the Pandemic, combined with a growing awareness abroad that China (which doesn’t do cash anymore) relies for day-to-day finance on mobile apps, made a prospective visit more than a little daunting to the average foreigner. Coupled with language barrier, it was off putting to say the least.
First there was the transit-visa free policy. Enacted in 72-hour mode as long ago as 2017, few paid much attention. But the emergence from COVID and a frankly bleak economy were to change that.
Recently upgraded to a 144-hour visa-free transit, the policy gives holders of onward tickets 6 days to spend in Nanjing or anywhere in the Yangtze River Delta. This translates to being able to enter China at Nanjing without a visa, and then depart 6 days later, from Shanghai for example, to a third country.
And this year there has been no shortage of people doing just that; 11,000 visa-free visitors into Nanjing during 24H1 to be exact. The aforementioned Beijing News also revealed this was a 4,962.84 percent increase on last year. With a bit of backward math it doesn’t need a genius to hence point out that a year ago only a little more than one poor foreigner came to Nanjing each day on a transit-free visa during 23H1.
Then there are those who now don’t need a visa for a longer-term stay, with China granting visa-free visits to the nationals of an ever growing number of countries. Neighbours and tourism favourites such as Thailand and Singapore were the initial and obvious choices, but that selection now even includes Australia and New Zealand, and even some of the European heavyweights; countries such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
And the catch is only a small one; visits are limited to a 15-day stay. For most people, that’s enough time to take in a good selection of China’s sights, F&B and more than a handful of business meetings.
The upshot is that for a significant part of the planet, all that is now needed to come to China is money, motive and a trip to the airport. And for an economy still only beginning to get up from its knees, this can only be so very good for China.
