"City is not City?"
"Good City~"
Recently, have you swiped this Internet meme?
The whole network is brushing "City is not City"
What does that mean exactly?
This sentence comes from a conversation between a foreign blogger and his sister while traveling in China, and due to the demonic brainwashing of the tone, it has attracted many netizens to imitate. Under everyone's interpretation, this colloquial phrase has become synonymous with urbanization, foreignness, novelty, and even "excitement".
As China continues to roll out a number of visa optimization measures to China, more and more foreign tourists come to "check in" and share their travel to China on social platforms, and the topic of "ChinaTravel" continues to rise.
Take the subway and praise the modern infrastructure↓
Lamenting the continuous upgrading of online payments↓
Seeing the scenery of Zhangjiajie, Hunan, the sound of "wow" is constant↓
△ Video source/Universal Cultural Tourism
Put on Hanfu and feel the beauty of traditional culture↓
"A lot of us have already listed China
At the top of the travel list"
The videos of these bloggers introducing their trip to China have broken the stereotypes that many foreigners have about China, and gathered more and more "potential customers" who want to come to China to experience it firsthand.
Some netizens praised China's advanced and modernized:
It's nice that someone broke out of the offensive of Western propaganda and went to China. I'm from Indonesia and have been traveling to China for business or vacation since 2004. Every time, I find that China is growing, with new high-rise buildings, new subways, and so on.
Some netizens were successfully planted and said that they also planned to go to China to see it in person:
We want to discover the real China with you! And not what Western countries want us to see or believe! With this huge amount of information, many of us have put China at the top of our travel lists.
China's visa-free "circle of friends" continues to expand
Travel is becoming more and more convenient
In the first quarter of this year, the number of foreigners coming to China increased by more than three times compared with the same period in 2023, and the number of visa-free foreigners entering China increased significantly. China's inbound tourism is heating up, thanks to the increasing convenience of travel, which is inseparable from the continuous expansion of China's visa-free "circle of friends" and the convenience measures provided by various places for foreign travelers.
- Launched enhanced visa measures for China residents
In order to facilitate the exchange of people between China and foreign countries, China has introduced the "three reductions and three exemptions", that is, reducing the content of visa application forms, reducing visa fees in stages, simplifying the approval procedures for international students in China, exempting some applicants' fingerprints, exempting visa-free appointments, and piloting a unilateral visa-free policy for France and Germany.
Up to now, China's 72/144-hour transit visa-free policy has been extended to 54 countries. Among them, three cities, including Changsha, Harbin and Guilin, have implemented a 72-hour transit visa-free policy; 20 cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jieyang, Shenyang, Dalian, Qingdao, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Xiamen, Wuhan and Kunming, have implemented a 144-hour transit visa-free policy.
△Beijing Daxing International Airport
- Issued a payment guide for foreign visitors to China
In March this year, the People's Bank of China issued the "Payment Guide for Foreign Visitors to China", introducing the acquisition methods and use processes of five payment services, including mobile payment, bank card and cash. At present, foreign tourists download Alipay, WeChat and other payment tools to support binding of international bank cards; There are more than 30 e-wallets that can be used in China.
△ Screenshot of "Payment Guide for Foreign Visitors to China".
Passengers who do not want to open international roaming can bring their passports or foreigners' permanent residence ID cards to the business halls of China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Radio and Television and other telecommunications companies to apply for a mobile SIM card and open mobile communication services. Some operators also set up check-in windows or counters at airports to facilitate passengers to handle the application on demand.
- Improve the level of reception services
Not long ago, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Commerce, and the National Immigration Administration jointly stated that the hotel industry should not refuse to receive foreign personnel on the grounds that there is no foreign-related qualification, and proposed to coordinate the network operation platform to open a series of hotel English courses, and provide free hotel English training for operators such as check-in and room reservation.
- Facilitation measures for foreign tourists have been introduced
In Shanghai, many taxis are equipped with credit card machines for foreign tourists who don't have mobile payment apps or are more accustomed to swiping their bank cards.
In recent years, Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province has become a check-in place for many Korean tourists. Since April 2023, Hunan has resumed direct flights to Zhangjiajie from Seoul and Busan, and South Korean tourists can reach Zhangjiajie in just over 3 hours.
In April this year, the Mausoleum Museum of the First Qin Emperor opened an overseas integrated service platform to help overseas tourists make online ticket reservations, covering 24 languages and 29 currencies in 39 countries and regions.
"There is no distance between each other, and thousands of miles are still neighbors"!
Behind the expansion of China's visa-free "circle of friends", it demonstrates China's confidence in promoting high-level opening-up and strengthening international exchanges and cooperation, as well as its original intention to make friends all over the world and open up to benefit the world. When more and more foreign tourists enter China conveniently and experience the colorful, intuitive and three-dimensional contemporary China, it is really a good "City"!
"Seeing is believing"!
Safe, modern, beautiful and delicious...... When our way of life and the development of modern science and technology break through the "information cocoon" carefully created by Western public opinion for a long time, and refresh their perception of China, this feeling is even more "very Chinese".
"Welcome to China"!
I believe that in the future, there will be more surprises waiting for the world to discover.
▌Source of this article: CCTV News WeChat public account (ID: cctvnewscenter) comprehensive 21st Century English newspaper, China Daily bilingual news, China News Network