China’s cross-border trips, visa issuances soar in strong post-pandemic rebound
- China issued more than twice as many visas in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, data shows
- Cross-border trips from July through September soared by 454% compared with 2022
On Tuesday, data from the National Immigration Administration showed 123 million cross-border trips were recorded from July through September, a giant 454 per cent jump compared with the same period last year.
Among them, 61.68 million trips were made by Chinese citizens, while foreigners who did not live in border cities made 8.01 million trips. In the first six months of this year, foreigners who did not live in border cities made 8.43 million trips across the border.
Residents from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan made a total of 50.17 million trips.
Meanwhile, some 608,000 visas were issued to international travellers in the third quarter, 268.5 per cent more than in the same period in 2022, when the administration said levels had “recovered to the same period of 2019”.
China reopened its borders to foreign visitors in January after nearly three years of pandemic-related travel restrictions, making it one of the last countries in the world to lift border controls.
Since then, the number of visas issued recovered slowly, but documents were often delayed, largely because of immense foreign demand, according to the administration.