Chinese travel interest in Russia soars after visa-free reports

Chinese Premier Li Qiang urged China and Russia to leverage mutually beneficial policies, such as visa-free access, to serve the public interest, promote better mutual understanding and closer ties between the peoples of the two countries, during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Tuesday.

Multiple Russian media outlets reported that Putin said on Tuesday that Russia will introduce visa-free travel for Chinese citizens in the very near future, in a move that mirrors China's recent decision to grant the same privilege to Russian nationals.

China attaches great importance to facilitating cross-border travel between the Chinese and Russian people, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Wednesday when asked to comment on Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that the visa-free policy toward Chinese nationals will take effect in the near future.

"China and Russia are each other's largest neighbors. Mutual visa exemption will further strengthen people-to-people and cultural exchanges and serve the common interests of the two peoples,'' Mao added.

The related visa-free policy news has sparked a surge in Chinese citizens' interests in travelling to Russia, with Chinese travel platform qunar.com reporting a threefold increase in online searches on Wednesday for flights to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Industry insiders and observers believe that the new policy will offer a significant boost to bilateral people-to-people exchanges between China and Russia, enhancing mutual understanding, while also helping to unlock potential and create new growth points in trade and economic relations.

In the context of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era, the latest move will also consolidate and enrich the annotation of bilateral cooperation, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of bilateral relations, analysts pointed out.

News of visa-free travel has triggered a massive surge in flight searches to Russia, according to a report qunar.com sent to the Global Times on Wednesday. As of 9 am on Wednesday, Moscow ranked among the top 10 global cities in both total search volume and growth rate on the platform.

The number of searches for the Beijing-Moscow route jumped 3.4-fold hour-on-hour on qunar.com, while searches for flights to Moscow departing from Chengdu rose 3.2-fold. Searches for departures from Shanghai increased 1.1-fold hour-on-hour, while those from Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, rose 1.4-fold. Searches for flights from Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, and Southwest China's Chongqing to Moscow also increased over 1 time.

Flight searches for routes from China to Saint Petersburg have also surged on the platform.

Xu Xiaolei, marketing manager at CYTS Tours Holding Co, told the Global Times on Wednesday that inquiries for trips to Russia soared by 15 percent to 20 percent on Wednesday, compared with the previous week.

For example, "many Chinese travelers are asking when exactly the visa-free policy will officially take effect and whether it will be in place in time for the Spring Festival holidays," Xu said.

He also noted that the visa-exemption policy will open up a wider range of Russian travel destinations for Chinese tourists, extending beyond the traditional hotspots of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Lake Baikal to Russia's Far East and Arctic regions, thereby elevating bilateral tourism exchanges to "deeper, broader, and higher levels."

Guan Jian, spokesperson of the GZL International Travel Service, also expects more Chinese tourists to opt to travel to Russia in the winter season, given the soon-to-be-launched visa free policy as well as "the overall friendly atmosphere between China and Russia."

Guan told the Global Times on Wednesday that in addition to the booming tourism, the policy will also significantly boost business trips to Russia for deal-making and trade negotiations.

Russia has been one of the fastest-growing outbound travel destinations among Chinese tourists this year, data from qunar.com showed. As of Wednesday, hotel bookings in Russia this year have surged 43 percent on the platform compared with the same period in 2024. Also, in the first ten months, the number of Chinese tourists travelling to Russia through GZL International Travel Service jumped 38 percent year-on-year.

Reciprocal policy

During meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday, Putin praised China's decision to grant Russians visa-free entry, saying it would "undoubtedly" strengthen cultural and economic ties between the two countries, per a RT's report on Tuesday.

"From our side, very soon, reciprocal measures will come into force for citizens of China visiting Russia," he said, adding that it would help boost bilateral cooperation, according to the RT report.

Premier Li urged both sides to jointly host new China-Russia national-level theme years well, leverage mutually beneficial policies, such as visa-free access, to serve the public interest, promote better mutual understanding and closer ties between the peoples of the two countries, and consolidate the foundation of people-to-people friendship in bilateral relations, according to Xinhua.

China has decided to institute a trial visa-free policy for Russian citizens holding ordinary passports starting from September 15, 2025 to September 14, 2026, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on September 2.

As of November 15, or just two months after China's visa-free policy took effect, the cumulative number of Russian nationals entering China via the Manzhouli Port has surpassed 40,000, marking a 60 percent year-on-year increase, according to data provided by Manzhouli Customs to the Global Times on Wednesday. Manzhouli Port, located at North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is the largest land port on the China-Russia border.

"Cross-border exchanges have been moving from 'convenient passage' to 'deep integration,'" the customs said in the statement, citing the growing popularity among Russian visitors of themed itineraries centered on traditional Chinese medicine therapy and ice-and-snow tourism.

Observers pointed out that riding on this momentum, the Russia's soon-to-be adopted visa exemption on Chinese citizens would complement this benign people-to-people exchange atmosphere and further bridge closer heart-to-heart connectivity.

"Despite a complex and challenging external environment, China-Russia cooperation has maintained strong momentum and resilience throughout this year. This robust streak is underpinned by an increasingly solid foundation and growing endogenous driving force," Zhao Huirong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

China and Russia have been sharing broad consensus on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues, analysts noted.

With regards to economic sphere, "the visa-free policy also will be conducive to removing barriers in economic and trade cooperation. Given the strong complementarity between the Chinese and Russian economies, we expect to unlock more growth drivers - particularly in fields such as artificial intelligence and the green economy - delivering tangible win-win outcomes for both sides," Zhao noted.