Beijing has experienced a significant rise in both inbound and outbound travelers since the three-day Qingming Festival holiday began on Friday, prompting enhanced measures to ensure smooth border crossings.

Qingming Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday that falls on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox. Often seen as a time to enjoy the greenery of springtime and to visit the graves of ancestors, the holiday has also become a busy period for cultural and tourism activities in China.
On Friday, Beijing recorded over 53,000 border crossings, marking a 32-percent increase year on year. Among them, over 9,000 entries were made by foreign nationals, a 51-percent rise year on year.
From Friday to Sunday, Beijing's entry and exit volume is expected to reach 160,000, according to the Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection, which has implemented multiple measures aimed at improving the efficiency and experience of travelers in order to handle the surge. These include streamlining temporary entry permit processes, expanding inspection lanes and waiting areas, encouraging the use of electronic boarding passes, and piloting self-service machines for printing foreigner entry cards.
"We've optimized the process for issuing temporary entry permits at both Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport. We've added dedicated channels where travelers can receive permits and complete immigration procedures in the same location," said Liu Yan, deputy director of the border inspection division at the Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection.
The spike in cross-border tourism is also linked to the implementation of visa exemption policies. As of March 31, Beijing had processed 584,000 foreign entries this year, with 18,000 travelers benefiting from the new policy of 240-hour visa-free transit, a 13.8-percent increase year on year. Most foreign visitors came for tourism, business, or family visits.
"This is the first time for us to come here to China, and we're very excited to be here," said a tourist from Mexico.
To welcome international visitors, Beijing is enhancing its tourism infrastructure.
"Beijing is working to become the top destination for inbound tourism. We've launched one-stop tourism service centers at Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport and introduced the country's first integrated bank and SIM card service products. We're also building a barrier-free payment demonstration zone along the central axis of Beijing," said Zheng Fang, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism.