144-hour visa-free policy has made overseas travel bloggers popular

This article explores how the visa-free policy can promote foreign tourists to visit China, drive the creation boom of travel bloggers, and meet the needs of foreign tourists for China's tourism information. It is recommended for tourism industry practitioners and cross-cultural communication researchers to read.

In ancient times, people opened their eyes to see the world; today, we open our eyes to see China. Since last November, my country began to implement the 72/144-hour visa-free transit policy for Norwegian citizens. The policy has now been expanded to 54 countries.

Under the background of the 144-hour visa-free policy, the number of foreigners coming to China has increased significantly. Tang Le Palace Restaurant in Xi'an has been "conquered" by foreigners. According to data from Shanghai Customs, the number of inbound foreign tourists in Shanghai reached 1.185 million in the first three months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 6.9 times.

On content platforms at home and abroad, various videos related to Chinese tourism have become "traffic codes", strongly exporting a wave of cultural confidence.

This time, it is the foreigners' turn to serve as special forces soldiers.

1. Visa-free foreigners, play with traffic passwords

Is China a CITY or not?

Recently, on the short video platform, foreign blogger @保保熊 became popular with his magical “CITY not CITY”. "The Great Wall is not CITY at all", "Drinking tea is a good CITY", "Nature is not CITY" ... Netizens call it magic.

Image source: TikTok

@保保熊 is not the only foreign influencer who has become popular on the Internet recently. With the relaxation of visa-free entry for foreigners to China, more and more foreigners are coming to China for tourism, and China Travel has also begun to become the traffic code on the Internet.

On TikTok and Youtube, a large number of bloggers filmed their own China travel vlogs with the theme of "144-hour visa-free transit in China", and the traffic was encouraging.

@Oliver Dadema is a YouTuber with 7,720 subscribers. His early videos of traveling in other countries mostly had a few thousand views, but his recent videos of traveling in China have reached tens of thousands of views, and his followers are growing rapidly.

Coincidentally, the video of German guy @Ken Abroad coming to Shanghai has reached 810,000 views, becoming his second most viewed content to date.

What's more, traveling to China is not only popular among foreigners, but also among Chinese people.

Under the guidance of the tour guide, the American couple @Sammy and Tommy tasted Beijing hot pot, Erguotou, Old Beijing yogurt, glutinous rice wine, donkey meat hot pot, pancakes, chicken wings...

This surprised many netizens: "No, I can't find so many private restaurants?" "I didn't expect that foreigners would recommend Chinese restaurants to me."...

Image source: Station B

With such a huge amount of traffic, the important task of promoting China was ultimately shouldered by foreigners.

It has been observed that the biggest common point in the content of this type of foreign bloggers is that their understanding of China is contrary to their feelings after coming to China. I was in the mood for "adventure", but I didn't expect "You Chinese people eat so well?"

After getting off the bus in Shanghai, @Ken Abroad first praised the sanitary environment of the streets. After seeing the beautiful scenery from the sky, he was conquered on the spot and said that China was very different from what he had imagined.

@osada, a socially anxious guy from Japan, was very uneasy after searching Google before coming to China. He did a lot of homework before the trip and was even dubbed "the uneasy immortal" by netizens at Bilibili.

Image source: Station B

In addition to their admiration for the safe environment, what foreigners most often mention in videos about their visit to China is the speed of the high-speed rail and the local cuisine. A pancake can be said to be "the most delicious thing you have ever eaten."

Driven by the sense of contrast and curiosity, every video shot by foreigners traveling to China becomes popular and has become a well-deserved "traffic code".

2. Traveling to China has long become a hot spot

On the Internet, it has been a long time since content about traveling to China has become the password for traffic.

There are many foreign bloggers on the Chinese Internet who are experiencing Chinese culture and tourism. The recently popular Korean student and ethereal master @基礎佑利; the early popular foreign blogger @郭杰瑞; and the Iraqi blogger @老王在中 who became famous for his store exploration videos.

There are also many contents promoting Chinese culture on YouTube and TikTok, such as the early @李子柒, Youtuber @Little Chinese Everywhere, and Indian travel blogger @Travel with AK…

@Little Chinese Everywhere started shooting China-related tourism content around 2023, including an episode introducing Hakka Tulou, which received one million clicks.

Image source: Youtube

Anaskhaaan started posting videos of his travels in China on Youtube in 2023. He has posted more than 10 videos of his travels in China. He also experienced the speed of China's high-speed rail in the videos. Many of his videos have received millions of views.

Image source: Youtube

Under his video about high-speed rail, many Indian netizens commented: "India should build its own technology" and "What an excellent intercommunication system"...

It is not difficult to see that in the current Internet environment, as Chinese content spreads, more and more people are seeing the real China.

We are also actively making our voices heard. According to China Tourism News Network, as of December 31, 2023, among the 31 provincial-level cultural and tourism administrative departments across the country, there are 25 accounts opened and in operation on the Facebook platform, 25 on the X (formerly Twitter) platform, 25 on the Instagram platform, 23 on the YouTube platform, and 16 on the TikTok platform.

Compared with the voices of Chinese bloggers and official Vs, the content released by foreign bloggers has the advantage of being more convincing and objective, and the videos as a whole are more friendly and infectious. The content voiced by a large number of foreign bloggers can not only make the perspective of cultural and tourism short videos more unique and the content more rich and diverse, but also make it easier to resonate with the audience.

Due to multiple factors, China Travel is popular. When the hazy veil of China is lifted, a fresh breeze will come.

Data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism show that the number of inbound tourists received by travel agencies across the country in the first half of 2023 was less than one-tenth of the same period in 2019. In the first quarter of 2024, the number of foreign nationals entering and leaving the country reached 13.074 million, an increase of 305.2% year-on-year, and has recovered to 92.46% of the same period in 2019.

There are even some tourists who find that 144 hours is not enough for them. They will leave the country for a short stop and then re-enter the country to refresh the 144-hour visa in order to complete the China Travel cycle.

With the implementation of the 144-hour visa-free policy, many posts about foreign tour guides and foreigners traveling in China have appeared on Xiaohongshu.

The face of China is presented as realistically as possible through the lens of foreign self-media creators.

3. Write to the end

The information gap for foreigners coming to China once again highlights the importance of foreign bloggers.

It has been observed that the travel itineraries to China on TikTok are relatively repetitive and have a certain lag. Most tourists first arrive in Shanghai to experience the convenience of the high-speed rail, and then go to a series of similar check-in attractions. This phenomenon has led to many foreign tourists gathering at the same attraction, forming a "check-in craze." Chinese viewers who watched the video couldn't wait to take the blogger with them to see more outstanding attractions and eat authentic local food.

Generally speaking, only foreign tourists who visit China multiple times will further explore cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, Xi'an, and Harbin.

On YouTube, although travel content is relatively diverse, most of it is concentrated in the above popular cities.

Although there are some guides for foreigners visiting China on Xiaohongshu, it currently mainly serves Chinese people who accompany foreign tourists.

In addition to the scarcity of travel guides, foreign tourists also often reflect in their videos the troubles they have with accommodation, communication, payment, etc. In the early days, accommodation options were limited to hotels with foreign-related qualifications, and payment methods were difficult to achieve seamless integration.

However, as these problems are addressed, it is becoming increasingly convenient for foreigners to travel in China. In terms of payment methods, WeChat and Alipay can now be linked to foreign bank cards, which undoubtedly reduces the difficulty of traveling to China.

Bloggers who have visited China many times have shared the convenience of accommodation and payment in their videos. These real experience sharings provide valuable reference for other foreign tourists who are interested in traveling to China.

At the same time, the vlog videos of these foreign bloggers also provide foreign tourists with the latest travel guides to a certain extent, helping them to experience China more deeply and explore the beautiful scenery and delicious food of this land.

In general, the emergence of bloggers in China has not only promoted the exchange and collision between different cultures, but also, to a certain extent, promoted the upsurge of foreigners traveling to China. Although everyone has different views on the same thing, not all foreigners are full of praise for China, and no city can meet everyone's expectations.

But no matter what, from the moment they set foot on this land, all the feelings are first-hand, real and precious.

Author: Guang Ye; Source: TopKlout (ID: 1093227)