BEIJING, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- For an overseas visitor to Beijing, a day of sightseeing no longer has to end at the Forbidden City or the Great Wall.
The city's tourism map is expanding. In the outer districts, a countryside stay can be paired with a scenic train ride or a visit to a major scientific facility, while old towns and modern industries are making their way onto international visitors' itineraries.
"China offers not only inspiring historical landscapes but also innovative tourism products and services," said Australian tour operator Manuel Condoleon, adding that his clients are increasingly seeking personalized experiences and homestays. Safety, he noted, is another major advantage drawing international visitors to China.
That changing landscape was at the heart of the 2026 World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development, held during the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing.
The conference released 121 detailed scoring criteria supporting ISO 11778 on tourism city brand evaluation. Led by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), ISO 11778 is the world's first international standard dedicated specifically to evaluating tourism city brands.
The new scoring rules build on eight top-level indicators and 53 secondary indicators in the standard, covering areas including tourism resources, infrastructure, service convenience, environmental sustainability, safety, stakeholder evaluation, visitor numbers and financial performance.
Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said quantitative indicators such as visitor numbers and tourism revenue remain important, but greater weight should be given to how tourists actually experience a destination.
A report released during CIFTIS by the institute of international trade in services under the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation pointed to a similar challenge. It found that growing inbound visitor numbers have yet to be fully converted into tourism spending in China, and that among five dimensions examined, improvements in service quality and visitor experience had the strongest effect on unlocking further growth potential.
Across China, efforts are underway to make travel easier while offering visitors more reasons to stay longer and explore more deeply.
SMOOTHER JOURNEYS
For international visitors, planning a trip to Beijing can now start long before arrival.
A new digital platform, launched by China Daily and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism during the conference, brings itinerary planning, flight and train bookings, accommodation, translation, transport, currency conversion and online payment services into one place. International visitors can access it either by visiting www.chinabound.cn/beijing or searching for "ChinaBound" in Alipay.
"Beijing is leveraging digital technologies to enhance tourism services and improve the experience of international visitors," said Zheng Fang, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism. The platform also features an AI assistant that answers questions and helps plan trips, serving as a digital guide for first-time visitors.
At CIFTIS, exhibitors showcased AI-powered multilingual guides and AR translation glasses designed to make on-the-go communication easier. One system used at the tourism conference displayed real-time translations directly in the wearer's field of vision, while other devices supported real-time translation in dozens of languages.
"Language used to be the biggest problem, but it is increasingly less of an issue," Condoleon said. "Technology, including AI, has made it much easier for today's travelers to get around China than it was ten or twenty years ago."
Chinese online travel platform Trip.com Group said inbound visitors still encounter difficulties with language, understanding tourism products, coordinating itineraries and dealing with unexpected situations, with problems during a trip particularly prominent.
The company has helped more than 170 scenic spots launch multilingual websites and deployed multilingual self-service ticket machines at nearly 300 attractions. Using AI, it also provides product information in up to 16 languages for more than 8,000 scenic spots and 450,000 hotels.
The demand keeps climbing. Latest data shows that foreign nationals made nearly 61.29 million border crossings in the first eight months this year, up 19.5 percent year on year. Visa-free entries by foreign nationals totaled 23.72 million, accounting for 77.6 percent of all inbound foreign visitors to China, up 26.8 percent year-on-year.
BEYOND THE LANDMARKS
The World Tourism Cities Development Report (2025-2026), also released at the conference, ranked Beijing fifth among 100 global tourism cities, behind New York, Tokyo, Paris and London. The remaining top 10 spots were rounded out by Shanghai, Hong Kong, Milan, Istanbul and Dubai.
For Beijing, expanding inbound tourism increasingly means giving visitors more choices beyond its best-known landmarks.
A scenic train route offers another way to explore Yanqing in the city's northwest. In Huairou, visitors can see major national scientific facilities and a science city, while Shunyi offers a look at modern logistics and service industries.
"Beijing has not only history and the past, but also the present and the future," Dai said.
He said inbound tourism in the new era should go beyond a single historical narrative and give overseas visitors greater access to contemporary life, technological innovation and popular culture, alongside traditional attractions.
Foreign visitors are already traveling farther from Beijing's urban core. Platform data show that overseas tourists have booked homestays in all 10 of Beijing's suburban districts this year, with bookings in Yanqing up more than 50 percent year-on-year and in Huairou up 14 percent. Courtyard homestays have proven especially popular, with bookings from foreign visitors rising 50 percent.
The trend extends well beyond the capital. First-tier and new-first-tier cities remain the main gateways for foreign visitors, but more travelers are now venturing inland to smaller destinations. Data from homestay platform Tujia showed that Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shanxi were among the provincial-level regions recording the fastest growth in homestay bookings by foreign tourists in the first half of the year.
"The travel footprint of inbound visitors is expanding, and their pace is slowing down, as they take time to seek out more authentic cultural experiences, like browsing local markets, trying street food, exploring ancient architecture or trying their hand at intangible cultural heritage crafts," said Ma Yiliang, vice president of the China Tourism Academy.
China's tourism development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) calls for further improving services for inbound travelers, building tourism networks around major gateway cities and developing products centered on areas ranging from traditional crafts and historical culture to technology, study tours, festivals and shopping.
Joseph Lema, an expert with the WTCF, said competition among tourism cities has moved beyond attractions and visitor numbers. What matters now, he said, is the ability to deliver quality experiences, effective governance and sustainable development.
