BEIJING: 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.
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. –The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
