HOST
Hi, everyone. Welcome to China Trends. Let's stay on top of the trends shaping our future.
A mutual visa exemption between China and Singapore officially takes effect on February 9th, the Chinese New Year's Eve. Last November, Beijing announced a trial program to allow ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia to enter visa-free for 15 days. The policy which started in December is set to last 12 months till the end of November this year. China wraps up measures to make it easier for international travelers to visit the country. What's the influence on China's tourism industry? Will it be a tourism boom in China this year? Let's invite our guest to share her observations. Welcome.
Clarisse Le Guernic
Okay. My name is Clarisse Le Guernic. I'm French. I arrived (in China) in 2015 for my studies (when) I was a student at Fudan University in the Chinese department. And since 2020, I started my own company in Shanghai. So I do like citywalks (or) historic walks in the city to show Shanghai history to tourists but also to like local people.
HOST
So among all your customers and clients, what are their most popular attractions or sites when they come to Shanghai and to China?
Clarisse Le Guernic
For Shanghai, I would say the top three popular attractions are kind of like the most basic ones, like Waitan, (which is also called) the Bund, also like the Yu Garden, and Disney for a lot of people actually. But that's like the very popular tourist attraction, like people don't necessarily need a guide to guide them there. They will go there by themselves. For me, I prefer to take people to some less-known places or some places that you can also go by yourself. But, if you want to know the history of the place, it’s better for you to have a guide. For example, along the Suzhou Creek or the old city, or the Xujiahui area, or the Hongkou District, or even this place here like the Xuhui District, which used to be the French concession called the former French Concession.
A lot of people love just to explore to feel the culture, because actually Shanghai, from the outside, sometimes sounds like a very big city only with like “tongyong” (which means common) things and maybe just no history. But actually, when people arrive here, they will find out that actually Shanghai has a history. But the history of Shanghai sometimes is not very obvious.You need to explore, you need to enter the nongtang, the lanes and maybe sometimes discuss with the people about something. Also, I do like help people discuss because, you know, there is the language for real.
HOST
Do you think China's visa-related measures will bring a tourist boom?
Clarisse Le Guernic
Yes. Since December last year, there has been this new visa policy for some countries, including my country, which is France. I think of course it's a great measure because it will encourage more and more people to come to China without having to worry about how to do a visa. You know, in France, actually it’s not very convenient sometimes to do the visa because you need to go to some big cities. If you are from a small city, then you need to go to these big cities, you will spend time, you will spend money. Maybe you will have to have a night there because it takes time to make all these done. Now people don't have to worry about this problem anymore. They can just directly buy their flight tickets and come to visit China. For the past few months, I already see some people coming with this new visa policy, basically no visa. Some (of them) are tourists, but also (there are) a lot of people in business trip. Also a lot of people who are actually tourists but have some friends or family here. It (the visa-free policy) makes it very convenient for them.
So hopefully this year, and more especially for France, because it's the 60 years of the diplomatic relations between France and China, I hope more and more French people will get interested in China and want to come visit.
HOST
There are always some complaints about the payment methods which might be a challenge for international travelers. But now we see that WeChat and Alipay, China's two largest online payment apps, now allow visitors to link their foreign credit cards. So do you think any other additional expectations?
Clarisse Le Guernic
Yes, since a few months ago when Alipay allowed people to link their international credit cards, I can tell from my experience from what I see from people around me—it’s working and not working at the same time. It's working for some, not working for some. It really depends on which bank you are in or this kind of thing. So there's probably still quite a few problems to solve on this international payment thing.
Another problem that visitors will frequently encounter is the phone-number problem because actually when you just arrive at the airport, for example, you want to link the WiFi, you need a Chinese phone number because you need to receive a message and confirm the code. So this is also a problem for the public WiFi and these kinds of things.
I think many people, will be quite afraid of this system. It's a different system. It's different apps, different websites, different, everything is different. But it's also our job to tell people before they arrive, when they arrive, at the time they arrive: “Okay, you need to download this this this that that that that, and your life will be easy.” Because when you are part of this new system, actually life is super easy. You can order food, you can order a taxi. And people will think it's very convenient, but you need to know how to enter this system.
HOST
And what about when they are checking the hotels or buying tickets from some sites?
Clarisse Le Guernic
I think the hotels, the train tickets, the tourist site tickets, these are all very convenient. Basically, you just need to have your passport and everything is super convenient. So, on this service part, there's no problem, I think.
HOST
So the last question is: if you were to create a plan for visiting China, what would it be like?
Clarisse Le Guernic
Of course, many people, when you come to China for the first time, you wanna go to the Great Wall, you wanna go to Beijing because you wanna go to the Forbidden City, so that's kind of “what I must do in China”. So of course I will recommend Beijing as a destination. Shanghai also. I think Shanghai first and then Beijing, I mean, in terms of which city you visit first, I would say first come to Shanghai then go to Beijing, because the cultural shock is not that high in Shanghai. You can still find a lot of Western foods, you can find English in the metro, and everywhere also in Beijing. You can find a lot of people speaking good English. So maybe it's quite a good place to arrive first and then go to Beijing and then I will recommend going to some countryside areas.
It's already two big cities that have very different vibes, Beijing and Shanghai, but then I will say go to maybe Anhui, some villages in Anhui or Jiangxi, or even like go to some more western places like go to visit Xinjiang or go to visit maybe Gansu, you know, the Silk Roads, which has very beautiful landscapes there.
Most people when they think about China, they maybe don't think about beautiful landscapes. Many think about maybe the culture like the Forbidden City, all these kinds of things. But China also has a lot of landscapes, very different, like deserts, mountains, plains, and a lot of different stuff. So I would say, go to the basics and then go to more less-popular places. You will find fewer people, beautiful landscapes, (and) delicious food.
Clarisse Le Guernic
It's very diversified and you will be like, okay, China is not only what you can see in Beijing or what you can see in Shanghai. China has a thousand different faces. There are a lot of minorities and a lot of different cuisines. So try to get a little bit more, not just a cliche about China, try to get deeper into what is really China.
HOST
Thank you for your time.
Clarisse Le Guernic
My pleasure.
