Have you noticed 🤔， At the international airports in Beijing and Shanghai, it takes Chinese people minutes to brush their faces and pass through customs, while foreigners have long queues? In fact, by the first eight months of 2025, the number of Chinese inbound tourists has exceeded 51 million, of which nearly 20 million are pure tourists! This number almost equalizes Japan's annual international tourist volume 😱。 It's strange that we don't seem to see so many 'foreigners' in our daily lives?
        
Who are they? 👤
First, break a stereotype! The foreigners we imagine are usually European and American tourists carrying big bags 📸。 But now the main force has long been replaced by tourists from Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. They look very similar to Chinese people in appearance, and if they don't speak up, they won't be noticed at all.
        
Where did they go? 📍
In fact, their movements are both concentrated and scattered. Most people will first land in hub cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu ✈️， But their travel routes are fixed in height: airports, commercial districts, popular attractions, and foreign communities. If you only commute to supermarkets or neighborhoods on a daily basis, it's really not easy to encounter them.
Meanwhile, a wave of "decentralization" is happening 🌊。 Border cities go viral due to visa free policies 🔥， For example, in Hunchun, during the holidays, everyone is Russian. Japanese tourists love giant pandas the most 🐼， The Ya'an base in Sichuan has become their "pilgrimage site", with a threefold increase in reception this year. Various characteristic scenic spots, such as the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an and the mountains and waters in Guilin, are also dotted with more and more foreign tourists. So you may not have noticed, but in the scenic spots, the proportion of "foreigners" is actually skyrocketing.
        
Why do they 'come as if they haven't come'?
The real reason is that the experience of entering China has been completely reshaped ✨。
Firstly, visa facilitation. China has implemented comprehensive visa free access for 29 countries, unilateral visa free access for 46 countries, and visa free access for transit covering 55 countries. In the first half of this year, there were 13.6 million foreigners who entered China without a visa, accounting for over 70% of the total 🙌。 They say they can leave, there's no need to prepare in advance.
Next is payment accessibility 💳。 Alipay and WeChat have opened the binding of international bank cards, and Beijing has also launched a special foreign prepaid card. Buying things, taking a taxi, and booking tickets, they operate exactly the same as us.
More importantly, technological empowerment 🤖。 AI translation machine, multilingual navigation, and one-stop entry platform are all online. The "MeetChina" big screen in Shanghai even allows foreigners to directly check shopping information and swipe overseas cards; The "Zhejiang Tour" model in Zhejiang province can provide one-stop travel planning and payment services 💡。
They don't need to gesture or ask for directions, they can handle everything with their phones - naturally becoming 'invisible'.
        
It's not that there are fewer foreigners, but they are more like us: similar in appearance, dispersed in movement, and low-key in behavior. The internationalization of Chinese tourism has entered a new stage: from "visited attractions" to "integrated life". In the future, the "local" at the table next to the coffee shop may actually be a foreign tourist quietly checking in 😉。
✨ Do you think there are too many 'foreigners' around you? Or is it still completely unnoticed? Welcome to leave a message and share 👇

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Australians here love to go to Brisbane, Japan. The flights to Japan are all white