On April 2, 2023, in Shanghai, a high-end cruise ship docked at the North Bund International Passenger Transport Center. (People's Vision/Picture)
"From now on, foreign tour groups (2 or more) that come to China on a cruise ship and are received by a domestic travel agency can enter the country without a visa and stay for 15 days from all cruise ports along the coast of the mainland." On the morning of May 15, 2024, the National Immigration Administration held a press conference to introduce the full implementation of the visa-free entry policy for foreign tourist groups on cruise ships.
According to Mao Xu, director of the Department of Foreigner Management of the National Immigration Administration, there are currently 13 ports in China that are qualified to berth international cruise ships. From May 15, 2024, these ports will fully implement a visa-free entry policy. In addition, in order to support the development of cruise tourism, 7 cruise ports in Dalian, Lianyungang and other places have also been added as ports applicable to the transit visa-free policy.
In the past two years, the continuous optimization of the visa-free policy has become a trend. From the issuance of a new version of the permanent residence ID card for foreigners, to the expansion of the visa-free "circle of friends", to the full implementation of the visa-free entry for cruise ships and the expansion of the scope of transit visa-free at cruise ports, the National Immigration Administration has successively introduced a number of measures to relax visa requirements since 2023.
Behind the policy, unleashing the vitality of China's tourism market is the most direct effect.
Mao Xu stressed that the full implementation of the visa-free entry policy for cruise tour groups in the coastal areas is "conducive to attracting and facilitating more foreigners to come to China for sightseeing and tourism, and providing richer and more convenient channels and ways for Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges." ”
The visa-free policy boosts the cruise economy
Southern Weekend reporters noted that before the release of the new policy, in November 2023, the National Immigration Administration issued a notice on the transit visa-free policy. In addition, 31 ports in 18 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Guangdong Province, have implemented a 72-hour or 144-hour transit visa-free policy for citizens of 54 countries. Among the 31 ports, most of them are air ports, and only 5 are sea ports.
"At present, the coastal provinces of the mainland have implemented a transit visa-free policy, and the applicable ports are mainly air ports." Mao Xu introduced that in the new policy, 7 cruise ports in Dalian, Lianyungang, Wenzhou, Zhoushan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beihai and other places are the new ports applicable to the transit visa-free policy. Previously, they had not been included in the transit visa-free policy system.
In addition, the policy also stipulates that in addition to the locations of the above seven cruise ports, foreign tour groups (2 or more) who take cruise ships and are received by domestic tourism agencies can also enter the whole group without a visa from the cruise ports of Tianjin, Shanghai, Xiamen, Qingdao, Haikou and Sanya. During this period, tourists can stay in China for no more than 15 days, and the scope of activities is limited to coastal provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and Beijing.
The scope of opening up has been further expanded, and "promoting the development of the cruise economy and cruise industry" is an important reason.
The cruise industry is highly internationalized and capital-intensive, with obvious spillover effects. At the press conference, the terms "sea resort" and "mobile five-star hotel" appeared frequently. Mao Xu mentioned that in the past decade, the international cruise tourism market has maintained an average annual growth rate of 6% to 8%, and the growth trend is steady.
For the development of the domestic tourism market, cruise tourism has also attracted much attention.
Zhu Zhenyu, deputy director of the Water Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, revealed that since the full resumption of international cruise transportation in and out of cruise ports in mainland China in September 2023, in less than half a year, the number of Chinese and foreign passengers transported by mainland cruise ships has reached more than 107,000. Up to now, 21 international cruise ships have operated in ports in China.
"The cruise inbound tourism market is developing well." Shi Zeyi, deputy director of the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, told Southern Weekend that from February to April this year, the German TUI cruise line organized 10,000 tourists to travel to China, and the "Tryddan", "Maischif V" and "Silver Shadow" international cruise ships arrived in Dalian, Shanghai, Tianjin and other ports respectively.
"The relevant policies will be further expanded to cruise ports in other coastal provinces, autonomous regions and cities, which will attract more foreign cruise ships to visit mainland ports, which will play an important role in promoting the development of mainland cruise ports and stimulating domestic consumption." Zhu Zhenyu said.
Multi-sectoral cooperation
Different from the transit visa-free, for the cruise entry visa-free policy, from the pilot opening to the full implementation, the pace of exploration has taken many years.
Shanghai was the first place to "eat crabs".
Since October 1, 2016, Shanghai port officially implemented the policy of "foreign tour groups entering the country by cruise ship for 15 days without visa", for foreign tour groups who take cruise ships and enter through Shanghai port, tourists can enter the whole group without visa from Shanghai Port International Passenger Transport Center and Wusongkou International Cruise Port, but the scope of activities is limited to the city where the cruise ship is berthed and its surrounding cities in the province, as well as Beijing.
"Since the trial implementation of the policy, Shanghai has received an average annual growth of 10% in cruise passengers, injecting new momentum into the high-quality development of Shanghai and coastal economy." Mao Xu said.
The successful experience of the pilot has allowed the scope of the pilot to be further expanded. Mao Xu said that despite the opening of Shanghai, a single port of entry cannot meet the design of cruise routes to China and the growing actual needs of foreign tourists. "This time, we will expand the cruise port of entry to all cruise ports along the coast, which is conducive to foreign cruise ships planning richer routes in advance, facilitating the entry of visiting port cruise ships to China at multiple points, and also facilitating cruise companies and tourism enterprises to design more tourism routes."
The new policy has also made up for the deficiencies exposed in the original policy. Mao Xu added that in order to allow tour groups to plan and design more abundant shore tourism products, the comprehensive opening policy will expand the scope of tour group activities to coastal provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and Beijing Municipality, which is one of the contents of the previous pilot policy in Shanghai.
However, this is far from all, and the relevant staff of the National Immigration Administration told the reporter of Southern Weekend that there is also the cooperation of multiple departments behind the visa-free policy.
The solution to the payment problem is one of them. Shi Zeyi, deputy director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, mentioned that before the introduction of the new policy, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism had noticed that foreign tourists often encountered payment difficulties when traveling to China. To this end, in April this year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, together with the People's Bank of China, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and other units, jointly issued a notice to provide guarantees in terms of full coverage of domestic and foreign bank card acceptance, retention of manual ticket windows, support for cash payment, and improvement of foreign currency exchange services.
Shi Zeyi also revealed to the Southern Weekend reporter that at present, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism is working with relevant government departments to sort out the whole process and all fields of inbound tourism, find and solve difficult problems, and make foreign tourists travel in China smoother and more comfortable by continuously optimizing visa and customs clearance policies, promoting the recovery of international traffic such as flights, improving comprehensive inbound tourism services, improving the level of opening management of cultural and tourism venues, and improving the shopping environment for inbound tourism.
"(We will) encourage and guide tourism market players to launch corresponding inbound tourism products according to the characteristics of different groups, design boutique tourism routes, provide interactive experience projects, improve the internationalization level of tourism public services, and better meet the tourism consumption needs of tourists, so that foreign tourists can not only see the most beautiful Chinese scenery, but also feel the charm of Chinese culture." Shi Zeyi said.
Southern Weekly reporter Jiang Minyu and Southern Weekly intern Yang Xiao
Editor-in-charge: Qian Wei
![Sun Zhiyang carried out a special investigation: accelerate the high-quality development of the cruise economy[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)