From May 1 to 5, Beijing recorded 104,000 visits by inbound tourists, indicating a year-on-year increase of 42.4 percent, with inbound tourism spending reaching CNY 1.13 billion, up 48 percent compared with the same period last year.

During the first four days of this year's Labor Day holiday, Beijing's ports saw 35,000 entries by foreign nationals, marking a year-on-year increase of 78 percent. Specifically, 20,000 entries (accounting for 57 percent of the total) were made under the visa-free policies and the 240-hour temporary entry permit policy.

The city has introduced a series of facilitation measures to enhance travel experiences. At the Beijing Capital International Airport and the Beijing Daxing International Airport, "Beijing Service" service desks at key information counters are equipped with translation devices offering face-to-face, offline and photo-based translation services. Major stores in the airports' commercial areas support payments by bank cards issued in China (the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao SARs, and the Taiwan region) and foreign countries. Currency exchange outlets and self-service machines are available across all arrival and departure zones for foreign tourists. Additionally, "BEIJING PASS" self-service kiosks have been deployed to facilitate seamless travel for foreign visitors coming to Beijing.

The Beijing Municipal Tax Service has distributed the Beijing Departure Tax Refund Guide in seven languages at "Beijing Service" airport service counters, convenient payment service centers for foreign visitors, and key commercial districts and hotels frequented by foreigners. The mobile version of the "Digital Map of Departure Tax Refund Stores in Beijing" has also been launched, enabling foreign travelers to locate tax-refund stores via their smartphones and navigate with a few taps.

During the Labor Day holiday, the Mutianyu Great Wall, ranked as Beijing's top destination for inbound tourists, received 13,000 foreign visitors, representing a 120-percent year-on-year rise. To meet foreign visitors' needs, the multilingual self-service ticket machines have been installed at the ticket offices of the scenic area, with Korean, Spanish, and Arabic booking pages added to its official website which previously supported four foreign languages.

During the inbound tourism surge of the past holiday, Beijing's municipal parks welcomed 35,000 international visitors, marking a year-on-year increase of nearly 40 percent. The city's "Visiting Beijing Parks" (畅游公园) ticketing platform managed by the Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks, as well as the self-operated ticketing systems at seven parks (including the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven), offer Chinese-English bilingual services and allow ticket purchases using passports. A total of 426 foreign currency POS machines have been installed across 179 locations in 12 municipal parks and the Museum of Chinese Gardens and Landscape Architecture. In addition, 3,244 Chinese-English bilingual self-guided tour devices were available at the parks more frequented by foreign visitors, such as the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, Beihai Park, Jingshan Park, and Beijing Zoo. Notably, the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven provided audio guide services in over 20 languages, including French, Japanese, German, Korean, and Russian.

The "China Travel" boom has also fueled the shopping boom in China. Over the Labor Day holiday, the footfalls of inbound tourists at Silk Street, a one-stop cultural tourism and shopping hub in the capital,  increased by 53 percent year-on-year, with sales revenue rising by 67 percent. "China Gifts" and "Beijing Gifts" emerged as key consumption highlights for inbound visitors.

(Source: Beijing Daily App)