The head of the Service Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce interprets the policy measures on promoting the export of travel services and expanding inbound consumption

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce, together with eight departments including the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Health Commission, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the General Administration of Sports, and the National Immigration Administration, issued the "Policy Measures to Promote the Export of Travel Services and Expand Inbound Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Policy Measures"). The head of the Service Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce interpreted the "Policy Measures".

1、 Background of the Introduction of Policy Measures

Travel services (including tourism, study abroad, medical treatment, etc.) are the largest sector of China's service trade, with import and export accounting for over a quarter of the total service trade volume. However, they are also the sector with the largest service trade deficit in China. Inbound consumption is an important component of service exports and a significant growth point for service consumption. In recent years, China has continuously promoted a series of measures such as visa facilitation, payment internationalization, and service standardization, introduced exit tax rebate policies, optimized the international consumption environment, and rapidly increased the attractiveness of inbound consumption. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2025, there will be 35.17 million foreign tourists entering China, an increase of 30.5% compared to 2024. Various types of consumption such as "food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping, and entertainment" by inbound tourists in China are included in China's travel service exports. According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, the export scale in 2025 will be 393.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.5%, which is 1.6 times that of 2019.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China explicitly proposed to "expand inbound consumption" and "encourage service exports". The 2026 Government Work Report requires optimizing the inbound consumption environment and creating the 'Buy in China' brand, and further proposes to encourage and support service exports. The Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, conscientiously implements the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, studies and formulates the "Policy Measures", and promotes the creation of a globally attractive destination for inbound consumption by improving relevant support measures.

2、 The overall idea and main content of the Policy Measures

The Policy Measures propose 16 specific policy measures from seven aspects, including expanding inbound tourism consumption, facilitating inbound business activities, activating inbound sports consumption, promoting inbound entertainment consumption, expanding inbound health consumption, developing inbound education and training consumption, and improving safeguard measures. The main characteristics are as follows:

One is to cover all aspects of entry scenarios. The Policy Measures focus on various inbound consumption scenarios such as tourism shopping, business exhibitions, sports performances, health consumption, education and training according to different entry purposes and consumption needs. From the perspective of "increasing the supply of high-quality services", a series of measures are introduced, such as enriching the supply of inbound tourism products, improving international exhibition services and levels, supporting the introduction of international events, optimizing the approval management of foreign-related commercial performances, encouraging the development of Chinese education, etc., to stimulate new demand for service consumption; From the perspective of "integrating consumer resources and promoting integrated development", a number of new measures have been proposed, such as launching "event+tourism" packages, expanding "performing arts+cultural tourism" integrated consumption scenarios, supporting the creation of "international performing arts consumption areas", and building international medical tourism brands, to better meet diversified consumption needs.

The second is to build a full chain promotion system. The Policy Measures propose to build a national tourism brand, strengthen global precision marketing, and continuously improve visa policies, so that more international tourists can "come to China" and "come to China"; At the same time, a series of convenient measures will be implemented in various links such as payment, tax refund, communication, tourism, and ticket purchase to break through the bottleneck of the entire process of "food, accommodation, transportation, shopping, and entertainment" after entering the country. These measures include optimizing departure tax refund services, improving payment convenience, facilitating the handling of telecommunications services upon entry, researching and promoting the equipping and application of personal intelligent devices for inbound cultural and tourism consumption, encouraging various life service software to provide multilingual versions, enhancing the level of foreign language services in key places, and improving the convenience of foreign tourists' booking and purchasing tickets in popular scenic spots, so as to enhance the consumption experience of "traveling in China" and "buying in China" for international tourists.

The third is to strengthen collaboration and linkage among various departments. The work of inbound consumption involves multiple industries, multiple links, and multiple relevant departments. The 'Policy Measures' explicitly strengthen systematic planning, enhance policy coordination, and strengthen departmental synergy. The key points are to further optimize the statistics of inbound travel development, promote data exchange between regions, strengthen data monitoring and feedback, improve the convenience of digital services for inbound personnel, encourage localities to provide factor guarantees for inbound consumption infrastructure based on actual conditions, and actively create a globally attractive international consumption environment.

Next, the Ministry of Commerce will strengthen policy coordination with relevant departments, guide local governments to implement policies, do a good job in external publicity and interpretation, effectively expand inbound consumption, promote service exports, and expand new spaces for service consumption.