US tourists embark on first-ever themed trip to China’s Greater Bay Area

A group of US tourists has departed from Los Angeles to embark on a first-ever themed trip to China's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), during which they will experience a "technologically advanced, safe open, and vibrant and beautiful" China firsthand, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.

Observers said that the themed trip reflects the booming demand for people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and the US, and it will provide an important window for people from both sides to facilitate exchanges and achieve mutual understanding. China-US tourism cooperation also enriches the connotation of pragmatic cooperation between the world's two largest economies, they noted.

The group was taking an Air China flight. The tourists are traveling to Beijing, Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province as well as the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions (SARs). A send-off ceremony was held on Sunday (US time) at the Los Angeles International Airport, the Xinhua report said.

The themed trip is a new product launched by the Los Angeles Office of the China National Tourist Office and the US Tour Operators Association, following the rollout of the "Hello! China" tourism promotion project launched by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, according to the Xinhua report.

Some of the US tourists were quoted as saying in the report that given the huge cultural differences between China and the US, the trip would allow them to "see with their own eyes and experience Chinese culture firsthand," enabling them to truly learn about China.

Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday that those travel destinations are "symbolic" in presenting both China's traditional culture and modern urban life, as well as the country's growing tech prowess.

"There's a gap between some Western media outlets' narratives about China and 'the real China.' The trip will help remove this information asymmetry and build trust, thereby injecting new vitality into people-to-people exchanges and bilateral pragmatic cooperation," Gao noted.

Xu Xiaolei, a marketing manager at China's CYTS Tours Holding Co, told the Global Times on Monday that the number of US tourists coming to China via the agency has been steadily expanding in recent quarters, and he expects the trend to continue throughout this year. In parallel, Chinese tourists' searches for US trips have been rising in recent months, "underscoring the growing momentum of bilateral tourism exchanges."

Following the first GBA tour from Los Angeles, Air China said it will organize more travel routes to China in collaboration with travel agencies, so as to further unleash the potential of cross-border tourism consumption, according to the Xinhua report.

The influx of US tourists also adds to the global "China Travel" craze, analysts said, which is partly fueled by Chinese authorities' stepped-up efforts to further optimize the visa-free transit policy. The trending "China Travel" is also a vivid manifestation of China's firm commitment to high-standard opening-up.

In addition to visa policies, Chinese authorities also have been making concrete efforts to facilitate cross-border travel, such as improving mobile payment services and offering more convenient telecom services, according to Xu.

The popularity of "China Travel" continued to gain momentum during the eight-day Spring Festival holidays, which ended on February 4.

According to a statement travel platform trip.com sent to the Global Times, inbound travel orders to China jumped over 200 percent year-on-year on the platform during the holidays, with South Korea, the US, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan ranking as the top five source countries for inbound tourists.

Data released by tujia.com showed that the number of homestay bookings by foreigners was up 3.7 times during the holidays compared with last year, with 51 towns and villages receiving bookings from foreign visitors for the first time.

According to the National Immigration Administration, 958,000 foreign nationals entered and exited China during this year's Spring Festival holidays, up 22.9 percent year-on-year.

"China will continue its effort to improve inbound travel policies and put more countries on the visa-free list, and present a credible, amiable and respectable image of China to foreign friends," a spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry said at a press briefing on February 12.

Starting in December 2024, China extended the permitted stay for eligible foreign travelers from the original 72 and 144 hours to 240 hours, or 10 days. A total of 21 additional ports have been designated for visa-free entry and exit, and the areas in which transit travelers can stay have also been expanded.