The event brought together diplomats and cultural representatives to highlight Zhejiang’s landscapes, heritage, innovation, and contemporary culture. Through live demonstrations and performances, audiences in Brussels were introduced to a destination where traditions remain actively practised.

As part of this broader focus on making the region more accessible for future visitors, H.E. CAI Run, Ambassador of China to the EU, said: “By expanding visa-free access to 50 countries, including Belgium and many European partners, China is showing its openness to the world. We want to further deepen our relationship with the European Union through closer cooperation and shared development. Zhejiang Province serves as an important bridge for China–EU exchanges and cooperation, and we welcome European friends to visit and experience a multidimensional China.”

Liangzhu heritage as a window into ancient civilisation 

One of the central themes of the exhibition was Liangzhu Ancient City, a UNESCO World Heritage site located near Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province. The archaeological site is more than 5,000 years old and is considered one of the earliest examples of Chinese civilisation. Through videos and visual installations, visitors in Brussels were introduced to Liangzhu’s historical importance and its role in shaping early Chinese society. For travellers visiting Zhejiang, Liangzhu Archaeological Site Park offers museums, excavated ruins, and cultural exhibitions that provide insight into the origins of the region’s history. 

The opening ceremony featured fashion and performance to reinterpret this heritage for modern audiences. Models appeared wearing outfits inspired by Liangzhu culture, combining ancient symbols with contemporary design. The performance was created to show how historical references continue to influence modern creative industries in Zhejiang. This connection between heritage and modern culture can also be seen across the province itself, particularly in Hangzhou, where traditional architecture, design studios, museums, and contemporary cultural spaces exist side by side. 

Master artisans bring Zhejiang’s craftsmanship to Brussels 

Zhejiang is known for its strong craftsmanship traditions, which remain an active part of daily cultural life today. To bring these traditions closer to audiences in Belgium, several artisans travelled from China to demonstrate their work live during the exhibition. Their presence allowed visitors to look beyond the finished objects and gain a clearer understanding of the techniques, materials, and time involved in each craft. 

Among the artisans invited to Brussels was Li Wei, fourth-generation inheritor of Pingyang lacquerware and founder of the Pingyang Lacquerware Art Museum. Li Wei demonstrated how multiple layers of lacquer are carefully applied and polished by hand to create decorative objects with deep colours and reflective surfaces. The craft has been practised in Zhejiang for generations and remains closely linked to the province’s artistic heritage. 

Another artisan featured during the exhibition was Jin Jiahong, recognised as a Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. She presented Hangzhou embroidery, a textile tradition dating back to the Southern Song Dynasty. The embroidery style is known for its delicate stitching techniques, rich colour combinations, and the use of gold and silver threads, including the well-known “one golden thread” method. 

Traditional woodblock printing was represented by Wei Lizhong, a recognised inheritor of the craft. During the live demonstration, he carved designs into wooden blocks before manually printing them onto paper in front of visitors. Guests could closely follow each stage of the process and, in some cases, even participate themselves. 

These demonstrations also reflected experiences that travellers can find in Zhejiang itself. Across the province, local workshops, museums, and cultural heritage centres allow visitors to discover these traditional crafts more closely. In some places, travellers can observe artisans at work, while other workshops offer short introductory sessions where visitors can try parts of the process themselves. 

Heritage that meets innovation 

The exhibition highlighted Zhejiang’s connection between tradition and technology. During one of the performances, a musician played the suona, a traditional Chinese wind instrument known for its powerful sound. In a surprising contrast, a humanoid robot appeared on stage and danced alongside the live music performance, symbolising how Zhejiang combines historical culture with innovation and technological development. 

Culinary exchange between Zhejiang and Belgium 

Zhejiang is known for its refined food culture, where presentation and craftsmanship play an important role in traditional cuisine. Delicate pastries, detailed preparation techniques, and regional tea culture are all part of the culinary experience visitors can discover across the province. During the exhibition in Brussels, this tradition was presented through a live demonstration in which floral forms were carefully shaped from mung bean cake, a traditional Chinese pastry. Alongside this, Belgian chocolates were prepared for guests, creating a cultural exchange between Chinese and Belgian artisanal food traditions. 

The exhibition underscored Zhejiang’s role as a bridge between tradition and innovation, while reinforcing cultural exchange and cooperation between China and the European Union. It also presented Zhejiang as a dynamic travel destination where culture, heritage, and innovation come together to shape the visitor experience. 

L’article China showcases Zhejiang tourism and culture in Brussels est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

According to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the national railway encountered a huge success during the 2026 May Day holiday. The number of railway passenger trips exceeded 100 million, reaching 117 million as of Monday, 4 May 2026.

The holiday weekend started strong in terms of train travel, with 24.8 million passengers registered on 1 May. That number immediately meant ‌a new single-day record according to the China State Railway Group. 2,070 additional trains were scheduled to meet demand.

@cgtneurope Traveling across China during the national holiday could be crazy. From Shanghai to Beijing, tourist hotspots were packed with people on May 1, the first day of China’s Labor Day holiday, as millions are swarming into those cities. On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, users have been sharing videos from the Bund in Shanghai, Forbidden City in Beijing and Hongyadong in Chongqing. All are popular tourist destinations – and now all are full of happy crowds. #ChinaMoments #MayDay #holiday #Chinatravel #China #Forbiddencity #thebund #Shanghai #chongqing ♬ original sound – CGTN Europe

Although official numbers have not yet been shared, the state railway expected another 23 million passengers to travel on Tuesday, 5 May, with 2,225 extra train services planned to navigate on the final day of the May Day holiday. The railway’s official booking platform shows that Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Shenzhen were among the most popular options.

Aside from the high passenger volume, the railway also noted that the system has operated safely and smoothly, partly due to the extra services that had been added over the weekend.

The railway was not the only means of transportation to score well during the May Day holiday in China. Overall, 1.52 billion cross-regional trips were made during the weekend, with many people choosing to travel by car. Waterway and air traffic were also projected to increase, although official data have not yet been communicated at the time of writing.

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May Day holiday

Traditionally, the May Day holiday is one of China’s most popular public holiday periods of the year. According to the state-run China Global Television Network, in 2026, the Chinese moved away from some of the most crowded landmarks and went looking for “meaningful, hands-on cultural encounters.”

“This year’s Government Work Report called for promoting high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry and expanding integrated formats spanning culture, tourism, sports and commerce.  The policy push is now being echoed across the country, with dozens of provinces and major cities rolling out new models and consumption scenarios at scale, laying a solid foundation for growth in China’s cultural and tourism market. As consumption shifts from sightseeing to immersive experiences, travellers are staying longer and spending more per capita, underscoring a broader transformation in China’s tourism consumption model,” CGTN writes.

Intangible cultural heritage experiences in Suzhou, indoor ice-climbing in Chengdu, paper making in Jingxian County, the Jiangsu Football City League, and immersive activities such as fruit picking and hiking were among the strongest climbers in terms of popularity. 

L’article China registers over 100 million railway passenger trips during May Day holiday est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The vessel, in development at the China Ship Scientific Research Centre in Wuxi, will be able to carry four passengers per trip. Tickets for adventures into the deep, where few humans have ever been, can reach into the thousands of dollars, appealing to a similarly high-end adventure tourism market as space, where short trips beyond fabled boundaries such as the Kármán Line have become a status symbol.

China's three deep-sea manned submersibles — Fendouzhe (Striver), Shenhai Yongshi (Deep Sea Warrior), and Jiaolong — have completed 1,746 dives to date, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said on Wednesday, noting the trio is set to complete 314 dives this year alone. pic.twitter.com/VdQIaTNx1r

— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) December 25, 2025

Research centre director, Ye Cong, told China Daily that interest in the new submersible was already running high among destination managers and tour agencies. He described the model as a potentially “valuable asset for cruise lines, high-end tourism operators and oceanographic researchers,” adding that it “will offer discerning travellers an unforgettable experience in ocean exploration.”

Nonetheless, safety will be a key concern, especially following the well-publicised, deadly fate that met the Titan tourist submersible in 2023 off the coast of Canada on an expedition to see the wreck of the Titanic. Vessels intended to reach the so-called marine “Midnight Zone,” between 1,000 and 4,000 metres deep, need to be able to protect passengers from extremely low temperatures and resist 100 times more atmospheric pressure than at the sea’s surface. The integrity of windows, a vital component allowing tourists and scientists alike to take in their surroundings, is particularly problematic.

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But, during his China Daily interview, Ye Cong reported that the Chinese team have already solved that issue through the development of a transparent hull that offers a 360-degree vista. “After more than four years of research, engineers have finalized the structural design,” he said, adding that sea trials and further iterations will follow.

The submersible is set to become a competitor to established brands like Florida’s Triton and the Netherlands’ U-Boat Worx, but China is not a newbie to the sector. Confidence in the project stems from previous national form in the shape of dozens of submersibles for leisure use—albeit at shallower depths of around 20 metres in reservoirs, lakes and coastal waters. And those are as nothing to the country’s three manned deep-sea submersibles, such as record-breakers Jiaolong and Deep Sea Warrior, that carried out over 300 dives worldwide in 2025, making up over half of global deep-sea operations.

L’article First Chinese deep sea tourist submersible could be operational before 2030 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 596 million domestic trips were made during the nine-day Spring Festival break, which ended on Monday. Total tourism spending reached 803.5 billion yuan, approximately $117 billion, marking the highest figures ever recorded for the holiday period.

Both trips and revenue rose by almost 19% compared with last year’s eight-day break, after authorities extended the public holiday in a bid to stimulate spending on travel, food, and entertainment.

@julia_chinacompass For who is planning to travel to China during the upcoming weeks…The travel rush named "Chunyun" might be the biggest migration on earth you have ever met… More than 9.5 billion ppl trips in 40 days from 2nd Feb until 12th March this year…#chinatravel #chinesenewyear #lifeinchina #traveltips #chinanews ♬ 刘德华、王宝强、刘昊然唱跳《恭喜发财2020》 – 刘德华、王宝强、刘昊然

Extended break drives record movement

Compared with 2025, travellers made 95 million more trips, while tourism revenue increased by 126.5 billion yuan year-on-year.

However, spending per trip stood at 1,348 yuan, slightly below last year’s 1,351 yuan, a marginal dip of 0.2%. The figures suggest that while more people travelled, consumers remained cautious in their individual spending.

The strong performance forms part of what is already a record-setting Spring Festival season. As reported by Travel Tomorrow, China’s 40-day New Year travel rush, which began on 2 February, is forecast to generate 9.5 billion journeys, marking the largest annual human migration in the world. The 2026 season, welcoming the Year of the Fire Horse, is expected to see a 5.32% increase in overall traveller numbers year-on-year.

From iconic landmarks to rural traditions

Destinations across the country reported surging visitor numbers.

Major scenic sites such as the Great Wall in Beijing and the Danxia landforms in Guangdong were packed with tourists. Smaller and more remote villages in Fujian also saw an influx of visitors drawn by traditional folk activities such as “you shen”, a vibrant parade honouring local deities.

In Sichuan province, the Jiuzhaigou scenic area received 182,700 visitors through 23 February, an increase of 17.7% compared with last year’s holiday. Zhangjiajie, the dramatic mountain park in central China, reported a 10.27% year-on-year rise in visitor numbers during the first five days of the break.

Major cities likewise posted solid results. Shanghai welcomed 21.67 million visitors over the holiday, up 8.36%, while tourism-related spending rose 20.9% to 25.6 billion yuan. Beijing recorded 19.84 million visitors and a total tourism revenue of 33.14 billion yuan.

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Travel platforms noted that lower-tier cities and county-level destinations benefited from travellers seeking a more traditional “New Year flavour”. LY.COM reported that hotel bookings in parts of Guangdong, including Shantou, rose by more than 80% compared with a year earlier.

The intense demand was evident for individuals such as Liu Jian, a 32-year-old Beijing resident, who struggled to secure tickets for a molten-iron fireworks display in Tangshan, a two-hour journey from the capital.

“The ticket is 98 yuan, way more than the usual 38, but they’ve got tons of Spring Festival-only shows, so it’s popular. The tickets are gone the second they go on sale, and I just can’t get one,” she said.

@themotyy happy cny y’all!!! #chongqing #china ♬ original sound – user23079069307

Catering thrives while box office falters

The tourism boom was mirrored in the catering sector. Sales revenue at key catering businesses monitored by the Ministry of Commerce increased by 5.2% compared with last year’s holiday.

Hotpot chain Haidilao said it served more than seven million customers nationwide in the first five days of the break, with traffic on Lunar New Year’s Eve and the first day of the new year rising by more than 10% year-on-year.

Lin Yu Fried Chicken reported more than 3.7 million store visits during the holiday period, boosted by people returning to their hometowns. One outlet located in a scenic area of Rizhao in Shandong province recorded order volumes nearly seven times higher than on regular days.

In contrast, the box office saw a significant slump. Spring Festival cinema takings totalled 5.75 billion yuan, down 39.5% year-on-year, while total admissions fell 35.8% to 120 million, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. Analysts attributed the decline to weaker word of mouth surrounding new film releases.

@meetchinatour Happy Chinese New Year Shantou Guangdong #chinesenewyear #meetchina #chinatravel #chinatrip #exploretheworld ♬ …? – daniel.mp3 & Zamaro

A positive signal for 2026

The record-breaking holiday performance will be welcomed by Chinese authorities, who have extended the break specifically to encourage domestic consumption amid ongoing economic caution.

While spending per trip suggests households remain prudent, the overall scale of travel and total revenue underscores the continued strength of domestic tourism as a pillar of China’s economic strategy.

With the wider 9.5 billion-journey Spring Festival travel season still underway, the Year of the Fire Horse has begun with powerful momentum for the country’s tourism sector.

L’article China’s longest Lunar New Year holiday fuels record 803.5 billion yuan tourism surge est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

At the end of 2024, Chinese company DeepSeek launched its much-talked-about V3 AI model, followed by its R1 model at the start of 2025. As tech news site The Information believes the next-generation V4 model will soon hit the market, rival companies have launched their new developments en masse.

Some of the most important launches include those of Alibaba, ByteDance, and Zhipu. China is generally considered to be the most important competitor to the U.S. concerning AI models, as DeepSeek even became the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the U.S. after V3 hit the market, overtaking ChatGPT.

Qwen Intelligence Files: All-in-One Vision. Alibaba's Qwen-3.5 Plus is here! With native multimodality, it reads, hears, and sees all at once. Unified intelligence for any case.
Coding plan now just $5/mo.
:https://t.co/XDafsi6Bhx#AlibabaCloud #Qwen #Qwen35Plus… pic.twitter.com/gpIdB48ieA

— Alibaba Cloud (@alibaba_cloud) February 19, 2026

Alibaba: Qwen 3.5

Qwen 3.5 hit the market on 16 February 2026, and according to the e-commerce company, it can understand text, images, and videos across 200 languages. Moreover, it should be able to deploy AI agents – indecent decision-making and task-executing systems – five times faster than its competitors, while being 60% cheaper than Qwen 2.5.

“It demonstrates outstanding results across a full range of benchmark evaluations, including reasoning, coding, agent capabilities, and multimodal understanding, empowering developers and enterprises to achieve significantly greater productivity”, the company said in a press release.

Qwen 3.5 is available both in an open-weight and a hosted version.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is here: The first open-weight model in the Qwen3.5 series.

Native multimodal. Trained for real-world agents.
Powered by hybrid linear attention + sparse MoE and large-scale RL environment scaling.
8.6x–19.0x decoding throughput vs Qwen3-Max
201… pic.twitter.com/Pq0qIk54MB

— Qwen (@Alibaba_Qwen) February 16, 2026

ByteDance: Doubao 2.0 and SeeDance 2.0

ByteDance, the company behind social media platform TikTok, did not release one but two new AI models. Doubao 2.0 marks the second version of its chatbot and should be able to perform similarly to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Aside from that, ByteDance also released the second version of its image-to-video and text-to-video app, SeeDance 2.0. Users can easily create immersive audio and video. However, the American Motion Picture Association already released a statement criticising the AI model.

“In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorised use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale. By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity”, the association said. ByteDance told the BBC it would be strengthening the current safeguards to protect intellectual copyright.

Zhipu: GLM-5

Zhipu’s open-source GLM-5 model is said to show better coding capabilities and an increased ability to perform long-running agent tasks compared to its predecessor. GLM-5 is engineered for agentic intelligence, advanced multi-step reasoning, and frontier-level performance across coding, creative writing, and complex problem-solving, according to the company.

When Zhipu went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange in January 2026, it raised HKD 4.35 billion (€465 million), which will be put into the further development of GLM-5. Due to its popularity and an insufficient number of chip clusters, however, some GLM-5 users have been experiencing some delays.

Introducing GLM-5: From Vibe Coding to Agentic Engineering

GLM-5 is built for complex systems engineering and long-horizon agentic tasks. Compared to GLM-4.5, it scales from 355B params (32B active) to 744B (40B active), with pre-training data growing from 23T to 28.5T tokens.… pic.twitter.com/uGYQUjIbbs

— Z.ai (@Zai_org) February 11, 2026

Other Chinese companies to have launched their AI models in the days before the Chinese New Year are MiniMax, NetEase Youdao,  Tencent, Dexmal, and iFlytek.

L’article Chinese companies introduce new AI models ahead of Lunar New Year 2026 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

A major festival period celebrated in many Asian countries, such as China, Korea, and Vietnam, the Spring Festival or Chūnjié, heralds the beginning of a new lunisolar calendar year and is marked by visits to family and friends, fireworks, food, parades, and parties. This year’s New Year brings in the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac, thought to be a time of dynamic energy, independence, and ambition—characteristics Chinese authorities will want to see feeding into the economy.

@amazing_xiangyang This is the Chinese New Year, and this is how we celebrate it in China.这里是中国，这是中国人庆祝中国年的方式。#becomingchinese #Xiangyang #EchoesOfSpring #BeautifulCNY #YearOfHorse #SpringFestivalGifts #ChineseLunarNewYear #CHINESENEWYEAR2026 #ColorfulCNY #chinesenewyear2026 ♬ 原聲 – Amazing china xiangyang

In the first week of the holiday to 10 February, China’s railways handled 1.01 billion passengers, surpassing predictions. Last year, the railways laid on four percent, or half a million, extra seat places to accommodate the demand.

Also included in the figures for the first time are road trips on major expressways, where over eight billion trips are expected. Meanwhile, airports handled 16.32 million to 8 February, out of an anticipated 95 million flights for the whole period.

Inbound international air travel to China in the two weeks to 10 February 2026 “surged by more than 400 percent year-on-year,” according to China Daily. Outbound international travel is also up this year, according to tour operators, who say the one-day extension that takes the holiday up to nine days is increasing bookings, especially to Thailand, Russia, and Australia, though demand for Japan is reportedly down. Domestic destinations proving popular include the southern island province of Hainan and the northeast’s Changbai Mountain resorts.

@lucky_in_guangzhou Don't miss the Guangzhou Lantern Show Yuexiu Park Jan 31- Mar 8 #guangzhoutravel #guangzhou #chinesenewyear #yuexiupark #lanternfestival ♬ original sound – lucky_in_guangzhou

Although the Asian markets have been described by France24 as “sluggish” going into the holiday period, Chinese economists are hoping for a surge in domestic consumption as people spend their holiday hongbao, a gift of money often presented in a red envelope and representing good fortune and blessings.

To boost that pocket money further, the government too has distributed 360m yuan ($52m) in consumer vouchers for February in a bid to drive up spending in a nation where a culture of saving means Chinese households set aside approximately a third of their income.

L’article China’s New Year travel rush begins with record 9.5 billion journeys forecast est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Lunar New Year falls between the end of January and over February in the Gregorian calendar and is a major festival period celebrated in many Asian countries, having spread through trade, cultural influence, and warfare through China, Korea, and Vietnam. It is sometimes called the Spring Festival or Chūnjié, in Vietnam it is known as Tết, while in Korea it is Seollal. It signals the beginning of a new lunisolar calendar year and is marked by visits to family and friends, fireworks, food, parades, and parties.

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Extended for the first time to nine days in a bid to boost the domestic economy, the Chinese New Year is officially from 15 February to 23 February 2026 but spreads over a 40-day period. The National Development and Reform Commission says 540 million journeys will be made by train, plus 95 million by plane, leaving a whopping 8.8 billion trips on the roads—the largest movement of people in the world.

The holiday is held up by many as a measure of the Chinese economy, and the Associated Press has reported domestic Chinese holidaymakers complaining about the cost of living and transport this year, and taking cheaper transport options. But it also cites others who say the New Year continues to represent an important opportunity for a break from work spent with loved ones.

Chinese New Year’s listing among UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage has helped to provide the cultural framework, China Daily says, attracting an inbound visitor market that the outlet positions as evidence of China’s growing soft power. It reports that inbound flight bookings to China in the past two weeks (to 10 February 2026) have “surged by more than 400 percent year-on-year.” Encouraged by visa-free and transit-visa arrangements, and with business travellers drawn by technological innovation, foreign visits were up 26% in 2025. China Daily argues this is part of a “reinforcing loop: openness invites visitors; visitors observe functioning systems; observation reshapes perceptions; perceptions generate further engagement.”

Ensuring that transit and transport systems work well during this busy period, then, is part of how China showcases itself. In 2025, China Railway offered additional trains and fast night services that combined to provide more than 14,000 passenger trains over the season, boosting capacity by four percent, or half a million seat places.

In the air, flag-carrier Air China has said it is operating over 70,000 flights during the festival window, a 10% increase on 2025. As well as Air China, others such as China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Loong Air, Spring Airlines, and Xiamen Airlines will boost schedules. Connecting airports will be handling extra flights, such as Singapore’s Changi, where 600 supplementary flights to as many as 15 Chinese cities will operate, more than double the extra flights laid on in the 2025 season.

Meanwhile, on the ground at transport hubs, AI customer service robots, e-reservations and invoicing systems, and language translation devices all feature among the tech innovations helping to ensure the season runs smoothly—weather permitting. In 2024, China was hit by some of the worst winter Lunar New Year weather since 2008, with central provinces suffering freezing conditions that blocked highways and left travellers stranded in trains and railway stations. The meteorological service will be working closely with authorities to ensure contingencies are in place in 2026.

L’article Chinese Lunar New Year sparks record 9.5 billion journeys est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The landmark passenger boarded the Adora Magic City, operated by Adora Cruises, marking a turning point not only for the company but also for China’s wider maritime tourism ambitions. According to Adora Cruises, more than 500,000 passengers were served in 2025 alone, coming from over 20 countries and regions, with the brand now accounting for roughly 40% of China’s cruise market.

A state-backed push into cruising

The milestone comes amid strong policy backing from Beijing. In recent years, China’s central government has increasingly framed cruise tourism as part of a broader effort to stimulate household spending and rebalance the economy towards services and leisure consumption.

A policy roadmap unveiled last week by transport authorities explicitly identified cruise ships and yachts as future growth engines. Officials pledged support for cruise home ports, expanded routes, and simplified customs procedures to encourage more international cruise lines to call at Chinese ports.

Shanghai, already the country’s leading cruise hub, hosted 544 inbound and outbound cruise voyages last year, up 17.5% year on year. Over the past two decades, more than 3,500 cruise ships have called at the city, carrying over 18 million passengers, making it Asia’s largest cruise home port and the fourth largest globally.

Beyond Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are being positioned as key gateways, with Adora Cruises planning to deploy vessels across southern China and Southeast Asia. The Adora Magic City will make over 80 voyages this year, including its first deployment to Shenzhen ahead of a Southeast Asia itinerary.

#AdoraMagicCity, #China's first domestically built #cruise ship, welcomed its 1 millionth passenger on Feb. 8, marking a milestone in the development of the Chinese cruise brand Adora Cruises. #Chinatravel #ChinaCruise pic.twitter.com/yRCSQYqoDV

— Liu Pengyu 刘鹏宇 (@SpoxCHNinUS) February 9, 2026

From domestic pride to international ambition

China’s ambitions extend well beyond its domestic market. Construction of a second home-built cruise ship, the Adora Flora City, is now over 90% complete and scheduled for delivery later this year. Based in Guangzhou’s Nansha district, the vessel will focus on international routes linked to the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area.

Adora Cruises has also lined up collaborations with established global players, including Royal Caribbean International and MSC Cruises. MSC is set to bring its MSC Magnifica to Shanghai for the first time, while MSC Bellissima will return to the city as a home-port ship operating routes to South Korea and Japan.

For European cruise groups, China’s expansion presents both opportunity and competition. While European brands bring decades of operational expertise, China’s rapidly scaling domestic fleet is increasingly backed by state support, industrial capacity, and long-term policy vision.

Europe’s edge: complexity, know-how and decarbonisation

From a European perspective, the rise of China’s cruise industry also sharpens the debate around industrial strategy and sustainability. European shipbuilders continue to dominate the high end of cruise construction, particularly in complex, environmentally advanced vessels.

MSC Cruises’ Executive Chairman Pierfrancesco Vago has repeatedly told Travel Tomorrow that decarbonisation and industrial sovereignty go hand in hand. Working closely with France’s Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, MSC has anchored its fleet expansion in European engineering, with around 70% of each ship built in France.

“There is a real battle in naval construction,” Vago has noted, pointing out that while most global shipbuilding now happens in Asia, Europe remains competitive precisely because it builds more complex vessels under stricter environmental regulations and shorter timelines.

As China accelerates its cruise ambitions, this contrast becomes increasingly relevant. Beijing’s drive for scale and market expansion sits alongside Europe’s focus on innovation, emissions reduction, and high-value industrial expertise.

A market under pressure elsewhere

The global cruise landscape also offers a cautionary tale. In Alaska, small-ship operator Alaska Dream Cruises recently announced it would cease operations, despite strong passenger reviews and loyal demand. Rising costs, regulatory pressures and thin margins proved too much for a niche operator to absorb.

The contrast is striking. While small-scale, experience-driven cruising struggles in some mature markets, China is pursuing growth through scale, infrastructure investment and state coordination, reinforcing its long-term commitment to cruise tourism.

As Beijing pushes ahead, Europe’s cruise industry faces a dual challenge: engaging with a booming Chinese market while safeguarding its technological leadership and sustainable credentials in an increasingly competitive global arena.

L’article China’s cruise industry hits million-passenger milestone as Beijing boosts travel ambitions est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Chinese authorities have been pursuing the growth of the travel and tourism sector since reopening borders after COVID-19. One of the last nations worldwide to relax travel restrictions related to the pandemic, the republic has been playing hard catch-up in what, according to the UN’s latest travel barometer, remains a steadily growing industry around the globe despite geopolitical headwinds and economic uncertainty.

The policy appears to be paying off. Foreign visitor arrivals without a visa doubled in 2024 compared to 2023, reaching over 20 million, China’s National Immigration Administration figures show. In 2025, 7.25 million foreign nationals entered China thanks to visa-free arrangements during the third quarter of 2025 alone, which was a nearly 50% surge on the same period the year before. What’s more, visa-free entries composed over 72% of all foreign arrivals, illustrating the impact of the approach.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a Beijing press conference that the visa-free extension to the end of 2026 represented China’s “high-standard opening up” amid a concerted drive to reduce visitor red tape. The extension applies to citizens of the following:

A suite of other countries also now benefit from visa-free schemes, including Azerbaijan which signed a mutual agreement with the People’s Republic in mid-2025 and the recent addition of Canada, officially made during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent visit. 

While European Union nations from Austria to Sweden are able to enter China visa-free for visits of up to 30 days, making a total of 46 countries on that regime, citizens of the United Kingdom still are not able to take advantage of the same. At the time of writing, the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is undertaking an official visit to China, accompanied by over 60 firms to promote business relations. It remains to be seen what the outcome of the trip will be.

L’article China expands visa-free travel for most of Europe until the end of 2026 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Set at a crossroads in the northern section of the Taikoo-Li Sanlitun district in Beijing, where luxury brands play a leading role, the new Tiffany & Co flagship store obliged Dutch architecture studio MVRDV to be creative. In order to catch the attention of potential shoppers and to elevate the surrounding cityscape, the building needed to be different yet luxurious.

Play of light 

In order to reach that effect, the designers opted for a 20-meter-high curving facade made from translucent, frosted glass fins, carefully selected for their ‘Tiffany blue’-hue. While the glass doesn’t move, it does interact with the changing light throughout the day and with the perspective of those passing by, thus creating the illusion of movement. The overall shape was inspired by the Bone Cuff design for Tiffany & Co by Elsa Peretti.

“When viewed from an angle, the layering effect of the dense glass fins amplifies the effects of the light, highlighting the facade’s shape. The light filtering through and reflecting off of the translucent glass creates a delicate interplay that is constantly changing as you move. And, as you pass close to the building, you see glimpses in between the fins to the jewelry inside”, explains MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs.

Not only throughout the day but even at night, the play of light has been carefully thought through. Integrated light fittings illuminate the glass from within, accentuating its blue tones even further. Meanwhile, well-lit Tiffany & Co logos provide brand-recognizability from all sides of the building.

As far as sustainability is concerned, MVRDV stipulates that the fins are made from responsibly recycled and locally manufactured glass. Moreover, the façade is designed to be demountable, allowing the glass fins and mounting brackets to be removed without damage and enabling the possibility for these components to be reused or recycled at the end of their lifespan.

The new Taikoo-Li Sanlitun flagship store in Beijing marks the fifth Tiffany & Co store to be designed by MVRDV. Previously, the architecture studio already designed the façades of the Tiffany & Co stores in Cancun, Shanghai Taikoo-Li, Stuttgart, and Singapore Changi Airport.

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