2025 China Tourism Facts & Figures

In 2025, China's tourism market achieved a historic breakthrough, with robust growth recorded across inbound and outbound tourism, domestic tourism, and tourism consumption.

Inbound tourism witnessed strong momentum, with 154.5 million inbound tourist arrivals, representing a 17.1% year-on-year increase, and total inbound tourism spending hitting US$131.1 billion, surging by 39.2% from the previous year.

Outbound trips made by Chinese tourists reached 167.92 million, including 112.71 million trips to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Domestic trips in 2025 totaled 6.52 billion, marking a 16.2% year-on-year growth.
  In 2025, China's inbound tourism market shattered all previous historical records, with 154.5 million inbound tourist arrivals, up 17.1% year on year. This figure included 35.17 million foreign tourists and 119.32 million visitors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Total spending by inbound tourists amounted to US$131.1 billion, a remarkable 39.2% year-on-year rise. 

The visa-free policy has emerged as a pivotal driver of the explosive growth in inbound tourism. In 2025, 30.08 million foreign visitors entered China visa-free, accounting for 73.1% of all foreign tourist arrivals, with a year-on-year increase of 49.5%. By the end of 2025, China had offered visa-free access to citizens of 77 countries, and tourists who do not qualify for visa-free entry can also take advantage of the 240-hour visa-free transit policy.

In terms of source markets, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan ranked as the top five inbound tourist source countries, all of which are covered by China's visa-free policies. Meanwhile, long-haul tourists from Russia, Italy and Australia posted particularly strong growth. For instance, shortly after the implementation of the visa-free policy, the average monthly growth rate of Russian tourists visiting Shanghai alone surged to over 80%.

Inbound tourism destinations are expanding beyond traditional gateway cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to fourth-tier and fifth-tier cities across China. Data indicates that the average annual growth rate of inbound tourist arrivals in China's fourth-tier and fifth-tier cities reached as high as 134%. Among these cities, Chongqing recorded a 170% year-on-year surge in inbound tourist arrivals, fueled by its unique urban landscape and widespread international social media exposure. 

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 China’s outbound tourism maintained a steady growth trajectory in 2025. Statistics show that the number of outbound trips, outbound tourism spending, and orders for outbound travel and vacation products all registered double-digit growth, with the growth rate of spending outpacing that of tourist numbers. Chinese visitors made 167.92 million outbound trips in 2025, 161.66 million of which were for private purposes, and 112.71 million trips were to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

In terms of travel patterns, paid leave travel and off-peak independent trips dominated the market. Outbound destinations were mainly concentrated in Southeast Asian countries and other regions within a 5-hour flight radius, as well as countries in China’s visa-free travel network, including Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia and Indonesia. Taking South Korea as an example, boosted by sufficient flight capacity on China-South Korea routes and the extension of group tourist visa-free policies, statistics show that nearly 5.5 million tourists from the Chinese mainland visited South Korea in 2025, representing a 19.5% year-on-year increase.
 In 2025, China’s domestic trips reached 6.522 billion, surpassing the 6.006 billion trips recorded in 2019 and setting a new all-time high. Year on year, this represents an increase of 907 million trips compared with 2024, a growth rate of 16.2%, maintaining double-digit growth for three consecutive years.

In line with the strong travel enthusiasm, Chinese residents’ willingness to spend on tourism has continued to rise. According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, domestic tourism spending by Chinese residents reached CNY 6.3 trillion in 2025, an increase of CNY 0.55 trillion from the previous year, up 9.5% year on year.

Looking at quarterly domestic trips, the first quarter led the way with 1.794 billion trips, an increase of 375 million trips or 26.4% year on year. The driving role and contribution of the Chinese New Year holiday were significantly enhanced, with approximately 500 million domestic trips made during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday. The third quarter saw around 1.7 billion trips, supported by the summer travel peak. In contrast, the gap between quarterly tourist arrivals narrowed, and the overall domestic tourism market throughout the year presented a pattern of “peak seasons becoming even more prosperous, and off-seasons maintaining steady momentum”.
 

	Chinese New Year	Qingming Festival	May Day	Dragon  Boat Festival	Mid-Autumn Festival  & National Day
Tourist Trips (100 million)	5.01	1.26	3.14	1.19	8.88
Year-on-Year Growth	5.9%	6.3%	6.4%	5.7%	16.1%
Tourism Revenue (CNY 100 million)	6770.02	575.49	1802.69	427.30	8090.06
Year-on-Year Growth	7.0%	6.7%	8.0%	5.9%	15.4%

See China Tourism Facts & Figures by Year: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007