China’s State Council has approved the most ambitious inbound tourism target in the country’s history—and the implications for aviation, destination strategy, investment, and global tourism competitiveness are immediate and far-reaching.
Tourism Moves™ | China — THE MOVE: When the State Council of the People’s Republic of China approves a five-year plan, the global tourism industry has learned—sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully—to pay attention. The tourism targets set under the 14th Five-Year Plan in 2021 were dismissed by some international observers as overly ambitious, unlikely to survive the post-pandemic reality of a country that had kept its borders closed more completely, and for longer, than almost any other major economy. By 2025, however, China had welcomed 154 million inbound visitor arrivals—a 17.1 per cent increase over the previous year—and many of those early sceptics had quietly fallen silent.
On 8 July 2026, the State Council unveiled its 15th Five-Year Plan for Tourism Development—the most comprehensive, the most financially ambitious, and the most internationally focused tourism blueprint China has ever produced. Its headline target is 190 million inbound tourist visits annually by 2030. Its revenue ambition is to generate more than US$150 billion in annual inbound tourism receipts by the same date. Domestically, the plan aims for 8.3 billion domestic tourist trips each year, generating 7.7 trillion yuan (approximately US$1.13 trillion) in domestic tourism spending by 2030.
Taken together, these are not simply planning targets. They represent one of the most significant declarations of tourism intent ever made by a national government. For airlines, destination marketers, hotel groups, investors and tourism policymakers around the world, the message is unmistakable: China is not merely planning for tourism growth. It is planning to reshape the competitive landscape of global tourism over the remainder of this decade.
Where China Stands Today — and How Far It Has Come
The context for the 190 million target matters enormously because it places the ambition within a trajectory that makes it considerably more credible than it might appear in isolation.
China received 154 million inbound visitor arrivals in 2025 — a figure that includes arrivals from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan alongside international visitors from the rest of the world — representing a 17.1 per cent increase over 2024 and signalling a strong restoration of the country’s inbound tourism momentum. The recovery has been building steadily since late 2023, when China began systematically expanding its visa-free entry programme, removing one of the most significant barriers to international travel for visitors from dozens of key source markets.
That visa liberalisation programme — which now provides visa-free access to travellers from more than 90 countries and regions through a combination of unilateral waivers, reciprocal agreements and expanded transit policies — has become one of the most significant developments in the global mobility landscape over the past three years. It did not deliver instant results. Its early implementation coincided with the gradual rebuilding of international air connectivity, the recovery of inbound tour operations, and the longer process of restoring traveller confidence after nearly three years of stringent border restrictions. By 2025, however, those investments in accessibility had begun to translate into measurable growth in visitor arrivals.
Moving from 154 million inbound arrivals to 190 million by 2030 requires overall growth of approximately 23 per cent over five years — equivalent to an average annual increase of just over 4 per cent. For a destination that expanded inbound tourism by 17.1 per cent in 2025 alone, the target appears ambitious without being unrealistic. Rather than projecting extraordinary acceleration, the plan assumes the continuation of a recovery that is already well underway.
Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Academy — the research institute affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism — framed the new strategy within the achievements of the previous planning cycle.
“Over the past five years, tourism has assumed an increasingly prominent strategic role in the country’s development. Based on the tourism achievements during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the recommendations chart the direction and path for the high-quality development of tourism in the next five years.”
One word in that statement deserves particular attention: quality.
China’s 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan is not simply a strategy to attract more visitors. It is a strategy to attract higher-value tourism, generate greater visitor spending, strengthen regional development, enhance international connectivity, and reinforce China’s economic and diplomatic influence through tourism. The target of 190 million inbound arrivals is therefore not the destination of the plan; it is one of the instruments through which a much broader national development strategy is intended to be realised.
The $150 Billion Spending Target: Quality Over Quantity
The plan’s target of generating more than US$150 billion in annual inbound tourism spending by 2030 is, in its own right, one of the most consequential figures in a document filled with ambitious objectives. In 2019 — the last full year before the pandemic disrupted global travel — China’s inbound tourism receipts stood at approximately US$131.3 billion. The new target therefore asks not simply for a return to pre-pandemic performance, but for an increase of more than 14 per cent above the previous peak, from an inbound market that is projected to be only around 23 per cent larger in visitor numbers.
The arithmetic reveals the strategy. China is not simply pursuing more visitors; it is pursuing more valuable visitors.
Based on the plan’s headline targets, annual inbound spending of US$150 billion spread across 190 million visitor arrivals equates to average expenditure of approximately US$790 per visit. That represents a meaningful shift from the structure of China’s pre-pandemic inbound market, when a substantial share of arrivals came from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan—markets whose travel patterns, average length of stay and spending behaviour differ significantly from those of long-haul leisure travellers from Europe, North America, Oceania and other emerging source markets.
Read carefully, the plan is therefore not merely an arrivals strategy. It is a deliberate effort to rebalance the composition of China’s inbound visitor economy towards higher-spending, longer-staying international travellers capable of generating greater economic value per trip.
That philosophy mirrors the direction increasingly adopted by leading tourism economies around the world. WTTC’s Seven Principles for Attracting Tourism Investment argues that sustainable tourism growth depends not only on increasing visitor numbers but also on improving visitor yield through investment, connectivity and higher-value experiences. Tourism Australia’s Tourism 2035 strategy reaches a similar conclusion, prioritising visitor expenditure, regional dispersal and long-term value creation over simple arrival volumes. China’s new plan places the world’s second-largest economy firmly within that same strategic conversation.
Domestic Tourism: 8.3 Billion Trips and the World’s Largest Travel Market
Any assessment of China’s 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan that focuses solely on its inbound ambitions misses the larger story. The domestic tourism target — 8.3 billion trips annually by 2030, generating 7.7 trillion yuan in tourism expenditure — is arguably the plan’s most consequential objective for China’s own economy. It provides the demand foundation upon which the country’s international tourism ambitions are built.
China’s domestic tourism market is already, by a considerable margin, the largest in the world. The 2026 Spring Festival travel season — widely recognised as the world’s largest annual human migration as hundreds of millions of people travel during the Lunar New Year period — was expected to generate 9.5 billion cross-regional passenger trips across all modes of transport. Earlier in the year, the Qingming Festival holiday recorded a 6.6 per cent increase in domestic tourism spending compared with the previous year. These are not isolated peaks. They illustrate the extraordinary scale and resilience of a domestic travel market that has become a structural pillar of China’s economy, a powerful instrument of regional development, and the commercial foundation for one of the world’s largest hospitality, transport and destination industries.
The plan’s target of 7.7 trillion yuan in annual domestic tourism spending—equivalent to approximately US$1.13 trillion—underscores that reality. The figure is remarkable not simply because of its size, but because it demonstrates how tourism has become an increasingly important driver of household consumption, employment and regional investment within China’s broader economic strategy.
For global hotel groups, airlines, airport operators, travel technology companies, attraction developers and tourism investors, that domestic market is every bit as significant as the country’s inbound ambitions. It is the scale of domestic demand that enables China to justify world-class aviation infrastructure, high-speed rail expansion, hospitality investment and destination development at a pace few other markets can sustain. In that sense, the inbound target of 190 million international visitors is not the foundation of China’s tourism strategy. It is the international extension of an already immense domestic visitor economy.
The Geopolitical Dimension: Tourism as Soft Power
The South China Morning Post’s analysis of the 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan highlighted a dimension of the document that deserves close attention from destination management organisations, tourism ministries and policymakers around the world: its explicit positioning of tourism as an instrument of China’s soft power and international influence.
The plan states that tourism will play a greater role in “showcasing China’s image” while strengthening the country’s “ability and influence in participating in the formulation of international rules.” That language extends well beyond the conventional view of tourism as an economic sector or a vehicle for cultural exchange. It positions inbound tourism as part of a broader national strategy to enhance China’s global image, deepen international engagement, and increase its influence in shaping the future of international cooperation.
This approach is consistent with the direction Tourism Reporter identified during the APEC Tourism Ministerial in Macao in late June, where Chinese tourism officials linked tourism development, expanded air connectivity, cross-border travel products and easier visitor access to the wider objective of strengthening regional cooperation across the Asia-Pacific.
For destinations competing with China for long-haul visitors, the implication is significant. They are not simply competing with a destination investing in new attractions, hotels and transport infrastructure. They are competing with a country that has integrated tourism into its long-term national development strategy—one that views tourism not only as an economic driver, but also as a diplomatic, cultural and strategic asset.
The distinction matters. Countries that treat tourism as a seasonal industry may improve visitor numbers. Countries that embed tourism within national strategy are often better positioned to shape investment, connectivity, international partnerships and long-term competitiveness. China’s latest five-year plan is a reminder that, in an increasingly competitive global visitor economy, tourism has become far more than a leisure business. It has become an instrument of statecraft.
The Visa Architecture Behind the Target
The plan’s commitment to providing more convenient, foreigner-friendly services for inbound visitors — alongside China’s continued expansion of visa-free entry and transit policies since late 2023 — forms the operational foundation upon which the 190 million inbound visitor target will be built.
China’s visa facilitation framework has evolved rapidly over the past three years. Through a combination of unilateral visa-free arrangements, reciprocal agreements, and expanded transit visa exemptions, travellers from more than 90 countries and regions can now enter China without a traditional visa under qualifying conditions. Reciprocal visa-free agreements — including the bilateral arrangement with Cambodia, which Tourism Reporter covered in June — have further reduced barriers to travel while strengthening two-way tourism flows. Meanwhile, China’s expanded 144-hour and 240-hour visa-free transit policies have transformed major international gateways such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu into genuine destination entry points, allowing eligible travellers to spend up to ten days exploring designated regions without obtaining a conventional tourist visa.
For destination managers and tourism executives assessing the credibility of China’s 190 million target, the most important story is not the headline number itself but the access architecture supporting it. Visitor growth at this scale does not happen by accident. It is the product of deliberate policy decisions that reduce friction at every stage of the travel journey — from visa requirements and border procedures to air connectivity and digital visitor services.
That may be the plan’s most important lesson for the rest of the world. Destinations compete not only through the attractions they offer, but also through the ease with which travellers can reach them. China’s latest tourism blueprint recognises that reality and treats accessibility not as an administrative function, but as a strategic advantage.
What This Means for Global Tourism Competition
For the destinations that currently compete for the international travellers China’s 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan is designed to attract — from Europe and Southeast Asia to Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the United States — the plan is more than a domestic policy document. It is a strategic statement of intent and a valuable piece of competitive intelligence.
China’s objective of welcoming 190 million inbound visitor arrivals annually by 2030 implies a meaningful expansion of its share of the global tourism market. Achieving that ambition will depend, in part, on China’s ability to deliver on its commitments to improve accessibility, service quality, international connectivity and the overall visitor experience. It will also depend on how quickly competing destinations adapt to a more competitive international landscape.
The immediate competitive implications are most evident across the Asia-Pacific, where many destinations compete for the same long-haul leisure and business travellers. As China continues to simplify entry procedures, expand international air links and invest heavily in tourism infrastructure, destinations such as Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and others will face increasing pressure to differentiate their own visitor propositions. The extent to which travellers choose Beijing, Shanghai or Chengdu over Bangkok, Bali or Tokyo will ultimately depend on factors beyond the plan itself — including geopolitics, exchange rates, airline capacity and, above all, the quality of the experience visitors encounter once they arrive. What is no longer in doubt, however, is that China has made tourism competitiveness a national priority backed by long-term policy and measurable targets.
For destinations beyond Asia, and for the airlines, hotel groups, online travel platforms and tourism investors that serve them, the plan’s domestic tourism ambitions may prove just as consequential as its inbound targets. A domestic visitor economy projected to generate 7.7 trillion yuan (approximately US$1.13 trillion) in annual tourism spending represents one of the largest tourism markets ever envisioned by a single country. The scale of that demand will influence investment decisions in aviation, hospitality, travel technology, attractions and workforce development far beyond China’s borders.
In that sense, China’s 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan is not simply a roadmap for one country’s tourism sector. It is a signal of where one of the world’s largest economies intends to compete, invest and lead over the next five years. Every destination may not lose visitors to China. But every destination competing in the global tourism economy will need to pay attention.
The Intelligence Takeaway
China’s 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan, approved by the State Council and published on 8 July 2026, is not a document the global tourism industry can afford to dismiss as a domestic policy exercise. It is a comprehensive strategic blueprint from the world’s second-largest economy, the world’s largest domestic tourism market, and a country whose outbound and inbound travel policies have repeatedly demonstrated their capacity to reshape regional and global tourism flows.
Its headline ambitions — 190 million inbound visitor arrivals, more than US$150 billion in annual inbound tourism receipts, and 8.3 billion domestic tourist trips generating 7.7 trillion yuan in spending — are not isolated targets. They are interconnected components of a long-term national strategy that combines tourism, aviation, infrastructure, digital transformation, international connectivity and soft power into a single policy framework. Few countries pursue tourism with this level of institutional coordination, financial commitment and strategic clarity.
For tourism ministers, destination management organisations, airline executives, hotel groups and tourism investors around the world, the publication of this plan is more than a news event. It is an early signal of where one of the world’s largest tourism economies intends to compete over the remainder of this decade.
Five years ago, many observers underestimated the ambitions of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan. The results suggest that scepticism was misplaced.
The 15th Five-Year Tourism Development Plan deserves a different response.
The question for the rest of the world is no longer whether China intends to compete more aggressively for global visitors.
It is whether everyone else is preparing to compete with China.
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for tourism development was approved by the State Council and published on 8 July 2026. The plan covers the period 2026 to 2030. Official details at China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism website: mct.gov.cn.
This post is part of Tourism Moves™, Tourism Reporter’s flagship global intelligence series decoding the policies, investments, and decisions shaping how destinations compete, grow, and evolve.
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