Foreign tourists take pictures at Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, capital of China, on June 3, 2025. Photo: VCG

Growing demand for inbound tourism is attracting increasing numbers of international hotel groups to open new properties in the expanding Chinese market.

"Driven by policy support, we witnessed fast-increasing numbers in terms of inbound travelers during the recent May Day holidays, especially in our first-tier cities, and as of April this year, we have seen that the proportion of inbound tourism in the hotels has surpassed that of 2019," Wendy Huang, senior vice president and commercial director with Hilton Greater China and Mongolia, told the Global Times. 

Huang's remarks came amid the company's expansion with Chinese partners. Earlier in May, Hilton Honors and DiDi ChuXing announced a strategic partnership to innovate and expand membership benefits in China.

"We have 840 hotels in China with a full display as of the first quarter of this year. We believe we still have vast development scope in China, and we are showing our confidence in the Chinese market," Huang added.

A series of visa-free entry and convenient travel policies have triggered continuously rising inbound travel, and this sustained boom in China's tourism market has fueled strong demand for foreign hoteliers. 

Hyatt's luxury brand Alila unveiled its all-suite cliff-side resort, Alila Dong'ao Island Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province in April. Perched at the southern tip of Guangdong's Dong'ao Island, the property offers dramatic ocean views.

The project achieved a super-high occupancy rate and maintained a high average room rate as soon as it opened, Angel Xu, director of sales and marketing of Alila Dong'ao Island Zhuhai, told the Global Times.

The demand during peak seasons such as the May Day and the Dragon Boat Festival holidays continued to be strong. The average occupancy rate on the days at the beginning of the holidays was nearly 90 percent, Xu added.

China has been continuously expanding its visa-free "circle of friends." Starting on June 1, China's unilateral visa-free program was for the first time extended to Latin American and Caribbean countries, raising the number of countries given unilateral visa-free entry to China to 43. 

The growing "visa-free list" shows China's firm resolve in expanding high-level opening-up. "The various measures China has taken to ease cross-border travel are all part of China's concrete action to create an open global economy," Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday.  

After the gradual implementation of various visa-free policies in China since last year, foreign visitors have tasted the benefits of traveling to China. The search popularity for inbound travel hotels during this year's Dragon Boat Festival holidays more than doubled, once again highlighting the appeal of "China Travel" to overseas tourists, online travel platform Trip.com told the Global Times.

In the first quarter, China received more than 9 million visits by foreigners, up by more than 40 percent year-on-year. In the first four months, more than 18,000 foreign-invested companies were established in China, up by 12.1 percent year-on-year, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.