China's saw a total of 11.81 million inbound and outbound trips during the recent eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, reaching 85.1 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Industry insiders say this is a strong recovery for cross-border trips, but at the same time there is still vast room for improvement, especially for inbound trips, as such trips are currently being held back by the slow resumption of international flights, geopolitical rifts and other factors.
The average daily number of inbound and outbound trips reached 1.47 million during the holiday period, which ended on Friday, the National Immigration Administration said on Saturday.
The number is 2.9 times that of the same period in 2022, yet only stands at 85.1 percent of the same period in 2019.
Before the holidays, the government rolled out a slew of preferential policies to stimulate inbound and outbound trips, including optimized visa applications for foreigners traveling to the country and announcing a third resumption of outbound tour group services to 78 countries and regions.