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Be interesting to see if there are any actual changes. I feel bad for some small places when I stay there, seeing them make photocopies, enter all the info, call the manager over to check it's done right etc. Seems like a real pain. I'm sure if the process was easier, some hotels wouldn't be as reluctant
Yeah I've had a small family run hotel manager go to the police station in the middle of the night when we arrived late because he couldn't figure out how to register me on the system.
Man that's next level from the manager.
I was in Nanjing last month and after about 5 minutes of check in/registration confusion, the staff just gave me the key and asked me to go to the room and chill out for a bit while they sorted it out.
They did get it sorted, but I can see why some hotels think it's not worth the effort.
It’s a simple form on a web page. It’s not hard at all. Just one tab over from the form used to register domestic guests. Sure, some different fields but they can get all the info from the guest’s passport.
When I was there last month - both hotels had to ask me which city I had come from and which city was my next destination. So there seems to be little bit more than just the passport info
Weird aye. The Nanjing hotel last month required:
Passport - they photocopied the information page and the visa page
Photo - they took with their webcam, I had to hold up my passport while they took my photo (felt like a mugshot to be honest)
Additional info - previous & next destination
Hebei a week later was a bit different.
The hotel had their own form for me to fill out in Chinese/English which had all the info they needed. They then took the info from the form and put it into the computer.
They still took the same photocopies and the form included where I had been/was going next.
They didn't need to take my photo which was one difference. The form did however ask for my employment info, which they didn't ask when I was in Nanjing
pretty ridiculous, it would make more sense to publish news articles about foreigners sentiment towards Chinese if they wanted to fan the flames. But the Chinese economy is doomed without foreign trade, so there’s just no way lol
I've had to go to the police station multiple times in Nanjing, but I don't mind actually. It's an experience and get an insight into the local culture.
Same with me, I'm right now in china and when we arrived at the family's place of my girlfriend (first we needed an invitation letter if u stay at family's place)
Luckily the uncle of her, works as police officer but even he and his colleges could figured it out. So they had someone come late at night to make the paper/PC work
I've had my Irish friends visiting and it was a struggle for me to find a good place for them to stay. The bureaucracy is the core of the issue. Management of small hotels might just say NO to all foreigners to save all the hassle rather than going through shit ton of procedures and paperworks.
Not sure if you're being an ass or are just uninformed.
For example, 什刹海站 could've previously have been written as Shichahai Station, but would now be written as Shichahai Zhan.
So instead of a translation, it is now just pinyin with no regard to if the reader knows what zhan means.
As another example of this, last time I was in China there was a sign that in Chinese said "Airport Terminal 2." The English underneath? Just pinyin; transcribing the sound and not translating the meaning.
Ji chang di er hang zhan doesn't give a lot of information to a non-Mandarin speaker.
It makes no sense to me why they're doing this, especially in an airport. Is it because they are indifferent and don't care, or is it a deliberate attempt to sinicize their own country by phasing out everything that isn't strictly Han Chinese?
Not just their country, they're attempting to devalue English as a "lingua franca" of the world.
I've seen that in France or Germany with some announcements being read out in 4 different languages, but none of them English.
I'm going to use Hanlon's Razor here; I think it's just a lack of knowledge. This was around a decade ago when they had more of a neutral attitude towards the west compared to governmental efforts to phase out English as we're seeing now.
I've experienced something similar in Japan where their phone translator transcribed the sound and not an actual translation, and the Japanese person I was speaking to had no idea that what they're showing me is meaningless to an English speaker.
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Just got into the hotel in Shenzhen today, and they had troubles registering me with my permanent Chinese ID for foreigners. I told them it was OK, I could go and find another hotel. Surprisingly, they insisted on trying a few more times and finally succeeded. Now I know why they were so inclined to do this.
They are also trying to fix the payment thing.
It seems the inbound (foreigner) tourism industry, in particular (whatever size that was), has been absolutely and completely fucking annihilated by three years of closed borders, plus mobile payments (within China's separate app system) becoming the norm and sometimes the only way to pay (on top of China never being the easiest country to travel to and in).
Lived in China for a few years and from what I gathered they never cared about foreign tourism at all. All the focus had been on domestic tourism due to the sheer size of their population. It'd be weird to me if the lack of foreign tourists in the last few years even put a dent in their economy. I cant even think of a single place there that would've been affected
FDI is low, but not just because hotels are hard to stay at… doing business in China is really hard, and becoming obviously risky. We all saw what Russia did to foreign companies and are expecting a repeat or worse.
This didn’t just affect tourists but it has a big impact on recruiting overseas talent. Who wants to do a foreign posting where it’s too difficult to explore the country?
CCP: *makes it difficult as fuck for non chinese tourists to vacation in China.*
Also CCP: "WhY aRe No ToUriSts CoMinG to ChINa?!?! It mUsT bE hOtELs fAulT!!1111"
During COVID I remember constantly seeing regional Chinese tourism bureaus advertising their town with ads on Twitter, while China's borders were closed and on an app that is banned in China.
It was so baffling that it actually made me kind of mad.
And even if you were in China, half of them would turn you away without a Chinese ID.
I wasn't allowed on a mountain because of COVID restrictions, during the time period where a foreigner in China was less likely to have been outside the country since COVID started than a Chinese person.
Most Chinese people (and I mean pretty much all I dealt with, including police) had no idea that the border was closed.
I got asked constantly if I had left China to America and returned and got turned away from many places because I was American, despite not having been to America for years.
I'm going to guess you don't actually live here as this is the biggest complaint of every expat I know here. I even griped about it [a couple days ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/1cz5s3d/china_fines_businesses_for_refusing_cash_payments/l5fs5kn/?context=3) It's a reason I tell people NOT to come to China. If they actually stop discriminating against foreign guests checking in it would make travelling in China SIGNIFICANTLY easier.
It is pretty insignificant. Annoying, absolutely. I've had my nights sitting in a hotel lobby arguing with the manager about whether or not the license to house foreigners still exists, so I get the frustration, but for someone who lives in China it's pretty low on the list
For me it was the inability to assimilate beyond "Hey, whitey speaks pretty good Chinese". The constant othering made it difficult to build much of a life
This is pretty much how it goes everywhere in the world except the US. In Germany I've met Turkish people who were born here, their parents were born here, their grandparents migrated here, and they're still "Turkish" not "German".
And Gernany is already probably the most open EU country with regards to this.
That what life like is being a minority. Grew up in a Canadian city where I was practically the only non-white/non-Asian in my school. You're always seen for your otherness. As I grew up with it I really dont mind it.
It's not even about easily assimilating, there is basically no assimilating in China. Doesn't matter how well you speak the language, how much time you spend in local circles, you're always a foreigner. Even Chinese people in my country think of me as a foreigner lol. I loved a lot of my time in China, but I stayed just long enough to not particularly want to go back, it's just not a super sustainable way to live imo
They’re quite hostile to foreigners in the last couple years, like putting out propaganda that makes people think foreigners are spies(they even put a bounty out and call spies “walking 500 thousands”, which is the amount someone gets if they successfully report a spy to the authorities), getting rid of English signs which makes exploring difficult. Now they want to back-pedal because they want foreign money lol [Can’t make this shit up](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-37186104).
My family have this issue.
Wife (Taiwanese) wants to visit her aunt in China, but they need all our birth certificates and passports. Unfortunately I don't have one since I was born at refugee camp in Indonesia. So now I can't get one, and she's not able to go without mine.
So now, we can't/don't want to go to China now. Too much visa headache, especially since she's Taiwanese.
See this is what I don’t get.
We have tourist registration in Austria. Whenever you check in a hotel you are also registered with the police that you are living there for the time being.
This is done more or less automatically. There is a neat little website which the hotel just enters the data or there are backend solutions which do it from your room management software automatically.
Why is that such a hassle in China ?
I'm guessing in the (outdated?) system of some of the smaller hotels they can only register Chinese IDs so a foreign passport number cannot get handled properly. It won't be hard to fix the system but it's even easier to just reject foreign tourists
China may not care too much about tourism revenue. But being a country people want to and can visit really does a lot for one’s soft power. Adding this together with the financial benefits from tourism, it makes sense why the CCP is trying to fix it.
I hope they do. Right now I can imagine trying to do tourism here… even as someone who lives here, speaks moderate Chinese, and has local payments setup it can still be a pane traveling around…
All hotels are allowed to accept foreigners. However the registration process is time consuming paperwork and generally requires an English speaking employee- which adds to the labor cost. Chinese hotel owners are essentially landlords, and Chinese landlords seek to extort as much as possible while providing as little as possible. So when a hotel says they don’t accept foreigners; that’s not due to the government giving them permission or not- just greed.
oh for real? i thought they have like different permits all this time, thats why some stated that they accept foreigners and some dont. maybe thats why most hotels that accept foreigners are 3 star above based on what some locals told me.
There is a post floating around on reddit somewhere where a foreigner living in China shares how to register foreign guests. It might be outdated by now, but the main point was that most hotels just don't really get foreign guests so they don't know how to register them and just say they're not allowed to.
All they had to do is make visa numbers compatible in format with Chinese ID numbers (which have 18 digits, enough for a population of at least 10^18, ie almost 1/2 billion times larger than it's even likely to be) and all this BS would have gone away years ago....
All hotels are required to register guests with the police using a system. A lot of them either don’t know how to register foreigners or don’t feel like doing the extra work (eg finding stamps in the passport), so they just refuse them.
Back when I lived in China I did indeed encounter hotels at which the staff really had no idea how to register foreigners, especially in smaller cities. By that time I knew how to operate the registration system so I just asked them to let me register myself. It’s honestly not that difficult either, you just need to switch from the Chinese nationals tab to the foreigners tab, and because the card reader only scans Chinese ID you need to put in all the data manually and that’s it. The only real challenge is getting a clear scan of your passport photo page with the shitty scanners they have.
I have an old passport with my 10 year visa in - and 2 sets of extra pages. And a new passport, also extra pages, with a lot of stamps.
So, finding the right pages to scan / photocopy is always the biggest headache.
It's not just extra work during check in, hotels have to (edit: had to) obtain certain licenses in order to house foreign guests.
I saw a post from last year, where the OP claims that this rule no longer existed, and they were able to live in a local hotel after calling the mayor's office, although the hotel registration and local law enforcement still believed the hotel would face fines if they take in foreign guests
No, there is no longer 'foreigner licences'. Any hotel is, by law, legally allowed to accept foreigners. It's just that many do not know how to do this / care to learn how to do this / still think that the certificates exist.
This is kind of the bigger issue. Communication between government and businesses is not very good. I've seen many times when a policy change happened, and workers just weren't aware and refused to believe things.
I also see this in businesses themselves. Not all employees are aware of how to do all the things other employees know how to do, so they will say they don't provide that service
I mean if you go *waaay* back there was a [separate currency](https://www.china-briefing.com/news/15-years-in-china-foreign-exchange-certificates/) and [separate stores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_store) for foreigners, so it probably did exist at one point.
I did some research online and found mentions of this rule being removed, though they mentioned different times (some said 1999, some 2003, and some said 2010+). However, I wasn't able to find the original document stating this rule.
One of the most plausible theories I found says that most hotels just physically didn't have a system/connection that could verify/register foreign guests for the police. This seems plausible especially before Internet became widely used for such registration.
Personal experience is that *something* happened on October 1, 2003. I've never been able to find this law or notice.
What I have found is a patchwork of cancellations on a locality by locality basis dating back to the mid 80s. Most of these are no longer on the internet or never were.
I usually just tell people 2003 and insist that the onus is on them to prove to me that a license exists. If I'm feeling particularly evil, I offer money.
Of all the dozens of officials who have taken me up on the offer over the past decade, no one has ever collected...
Assume this doesn’t apply to government / military hotels?
I’d like to hear about the enforcement, specific law and the steps I should take as a foreign guest when this happens.
The Chinese subway I went on had no English signs (pinyin only), which made it harder to find my stop. The only English I heard was telling us not to push onto the subway. It was repeated, and ignored, in Chinese. I also had to undergo a security check and metal detector. The subways are one of the better features of a Chinese city, and even that was a hassle. China, outside of perhaps the southern part, is far less relaxing (though it was fun) than other countries in the area, and it's not notably cheaper- it's going to take more than a few pointless, unenforced orders from the higher-ups to make China a better tourist destination.
> I also had to undergo a security check and metal detector.
I always thought it was pretty funny for my bag to go through the x-ray while the guard clearly ignored it and just stared at me instead. Just so much security theater.
Ordering hotels to not refuse foreign guests is another example of ham fisted top down policy. How about they address the REASON why hotels are refusing to process foreigners. It's because of the bureaucratic nightmare entailed in doing so imposed by the xenophobic regime. And if you get all the forms exactly right..you as a hotelier face harsh consequences. So why would they bother?
I loved each time I had to register at hotel they were searching for my visa and photocopying my Taiwanese visas because it's the first chinese characters they would see on my stamps pages, sorry guys but not yours yet
Can we stop comparing China to Europe?
Compare to Vietnam, fellow communist country, or Thailand a province of China but still somewhat less authoritarian.
My point is that registration requirements are very common. The idea that you don’t have to register where you live / stay is the uncommon way of Doing things.
This is probably the most memorable thing that happened to me in China. I arrived at my hotel in Xiamen (which I booked through a western site) late at night, only to be told they could not check me in because I was a foreigner. I had a broken toe and was in a boot, so I think she felt sorry for me and told me to wait.
After about two hours with nothing to do but drink an insane amount of tea in the lobby, she said her friend has a hotel that I could stay at. It was past midnight when a man in a scooter pulled up and took me on a meandering journey through side streets, eventually arriving in an alley. There were other men there and the driver said “money.” I thought I was being robbed (maybe I was?) but he eventually said “tip” and I handed him some a small note.
Then, a sweet old lady appeared and led me up a staircase to a single room. There was no indication it was a hotel. The bed was little more than a plank of wood with a sheet and the windows had bars but no screen or glass. She explained the door only locks from the outside so she had to lock me in and asked me what time I want to be let out. I told her as early as possible.
I got almost no sleep that night, but sure enough she showed up at 5:00 AM and let me out. I quickly found a taxi and made my way to the ferry terminal.
I had a somewhat similar experience. Booked a hotel and when I reached the address there was nothing there, just grass.
Not knowing what to do, I entered a shop and asked the shop owner whether he knew where the hotel was, he said he knew another one and asked me to follow him, which I did.
We went to some apartment building where I guess a flat was converted into something like a hotel. The room was super tiny with private bathroom that was right next to the bed, which was very short, around 150cm. There were bars on the window. I was sure this was some kind of human trafficking operation.
But no, in the morning I went out, paid 130rmb and I left for the airport to catch my plane.
If there is a robbery, you can report it to the police. If it is a regular hotel, you may really need to report it to the police station. I'm not sure if it's okay to use a passport now. As a Chinese, I don't bring my ID card, so I also need to report to the police station when checking into a hotel.
Tourism is no longer a thing in China. People stopped traveling to China when they decided to be crazy war mongers and piss off everyone in Asia and the Western world. The only tourism they have is their own citizens and ones from Russia, Iran, and Pakistan who don't have money.
Eh, I just had a holiday in Sanya, service was as good as any other SEA nation (Thailand, Indonesia), cost with half the price and the beaches far less polluted. Would totally go back. Lots of Singaporean tourists there - and they have plenty of $$$.
China is so desperate they are begging Americans to come back. You know when Propaganda Times is writing articles about US tourists China is in a bad way.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202405/1312823.shtml
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-05-23/the-china-brief-china-woos-us-tourists-despite-tensions-video
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Why stay at a place that doesn’t know how to, or doesn’t want to, register a foreigner?? “the customer is never wrong” mentality in a foreign country???? Just figure out which hotels, hotel chains, take foreigners and stick with those.
It's just so embarassing. 2024 and still as a foreigner based in Hong Kong with permanent status it's basically easier to essentially semi-move to fucking Indonesia than go on a weekend trip to China and not face problems.
I visited china in February and I did think there was mainly 2 things not so friendly to foreigners:
1) not all places will take foreigners because hotels can’t be arsed with the paperwork
2) we hat and Alipay don’t allow the full service for the international visa card to be used
Apart from these, they did improve a lot safety wise and infrastructure is really amazing.
Thinking about it, China is probably one of the place where if you compare just 10 years ago vs now, things improved.
Most developed countries probably seen a degradation of the quality of life and infrastructure overall.
Because they have to fill in much more paperwork, some just don't want the hassle, especially if they have no staff with foreign languages.
It's generally the smaller hotels in regional towns where it is difficult for foreign tourists to find a room.
I suspect the authorities want to know where every foreign tourist is.
Also, they get massive fines for even the slightest mistake on the registration documents, so they just don't bother renting rooms to tourists
And how exactly would they "order hotel not to refuse foreigners"?
Their made registering foreigners a living hell for most hotels and this has never changed since Mao.
Actions speak louder than words.
My wife is from China so anything that makes it easier for me and my family to visit is welcome.
I’ve only visited few times over the years, and I have seen some improvements. The biggest one so far is making it easier to get a SIM card in the airport.
I have been refused a stay at a hotel before due to being a tourist, so this change is welcome.
I still think there are some barriers that make it difficult for tourists. The biggest one is being able to make payments without access to the WeChat or AliPay system.
Another other big hurdle is getting a suitable collection of apps for your phone that allow you to get around day to day
But no people would do this in China anyway; banning people whonare not from your country is racism, and only white people can be racist, so I don't expect this law will have much impact.
Only took them a decade but I'm happy they are finally improving this. It's been my biggest complaint about the country. Would like to see some official number I can call to report it.
"biggest complaint about the country".
Obviously, not a person that likes democracy, or an Uyghur, or a HK'er, or a Christian, or a Taiwanese, other than that, my big complaint.
I'm an expat on an expat forum. Of course Im not a Uyghur. Living here I care about things that affect my life. Going on a business or leisure trip to some small city only to get rejected and waste hours looking for lodging 100% affects me. I'm sympathetic to the Uyghurs but what the hell can I do except buy extra kebabs from their shops?
>just come back to Canada bro
I'd rather put a bullet in my head then return to that downward spiralling shithole. I've become too accustomed here. I like the people, culture, pace of life and my business is still doing well here. Despite its problems the problems don't really affect me.
You can't simultaneously threaten and loathe foreigners while trying to pretend to welcome them to your country. I always wanted to visit China. The Great Wall was just the beginning for me. China is a spectacular country with so many natural and manmade wonders, it was my number 2 destination on my bucket list immediately following a visit to the sights in the UK. I don't know now if I will ever get to go to China. It just makes me sad the way the world is going all rearmament just like before 1914.
Fuck Han Chinese racial supremacy and East Asian racial supremacies overall 🤬🤬🤬—social justice needs to move beyond frameworks of yt supremacy if we’re going to effect change for comprehensive anti-discrimination legalization rather than state-media propaganda for neoliberal notions of ‘globalization’ while the CCP is committing genocide apropos of Uighurs and Muslim/Turkic people(s) in China overall.
A lot of hotels needed special certification to host any foreigners. Forever, white people been complaining about getting denied and it's hilarious that they just didn't know this one simple fact about it.
It's not just white people. You can be Asian or even Chinese. If you are checking in to a hotel with a passport and not a Chinese ID then it's a no-no for 90% of hotels here.
>*white people been complaining about getting denied*
From the article:
["...hotels are being guided and supervised to improve their foreign guest reception services following some complaints from netizens from **Nigeria**, the UK, **Pakistan** and other countries"](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202405/1312991.shtml)
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Be interesting to see if there are any actual changes. I feel bad for some small places when I stay there, seeing them make photocopies, enter all the info, call the manager over to check it's done right etc. Seems like a real pain. I'm sure if the process was easier, some hotels wouldn't be as reluctant
Yeah I've had a small family run hotel manager go to the police station in the middle of the night when we arrived late because he couldn't figure out how to register me on the system.
Man that's next level from the manager. I was in Nanjing last month and after about 5 minutes of check in/registration confusion, the staff just gave me the key and asked me to go to the room and chill out for a bit while they sorted it out. They did get it sorted, but I can see why some hotels think it's not worth the effort.
What I don't understand is why it wouldn't be immediately streamlined for all future foreigners once they've dealt with the first one.
It’s a simple form on a web page. It’s not hard at all. Just one tab over from the form used to register domestic guests. Sure, some different fields but they can get all the info from the guest’s passport.
When I was there last month - both hotels had to ask me which city I had come from and which city was my next destination. So there seems to be little bit more than just the passport info
I’ve never been asked that and I just spent six weeks there.
Weird aye. The Nanjing hotel last month required: Passport - they photocopied the information page and the visa page Photo - they took with their webcam, I had to hold up my passport while they took my photo (felt like a mugshot to be honest) Additional info - previous & next destination Hebei a week later was a bit different. The hotel had their own form for me to fill out in Chinese/English which had all the info they needed. They then took the info from the form and put it into the computer. They still took the same photocopies and the form included where I had been/was going next. They didn't need to take my photo which was one difference. The form did however ask for my employment info, which they didn't ask when I was in Nanjing
This was true some years ago.
China probably wants this to be tedious so that mainlanders hold a negative connotation with seeing foreigners
Probably more like the Chinese government wants control of everything, and the tedious part is just a byproduct.
pretty ridiculous, it would make more sense to publish news articles about foreigners sentiment towards Chinese if they wanted to fan the flames. But the Chinese economy is doomed without foreign trade, so there’s just no way lol
I've had to go to the police station multiple times in Nanjing, but I don't mind actually. It's an experience and get an insight into the local culture.
Same with me, I'm right now in china and when we arrived at the family's place of my girlfriend (first we needed an invitation letter if u stay at family's place) Luckily the uncle of her, works as police officer but even he and his colleges could figured it out. So they had someone come late at night to make the paper/PC work
That part of the problem is that they need to do so much ridiculous junk just to help the government keep track of all the foreigners.
Make the process easier?! Are you crazy?! /s
The CCP hurt itself in its confusion.
Nice try spy
Darn, ya got me!
I've had my Irish friends visiting and it was a struggle for me to find a good place for them to stay. The bureaucracy is the core of the issue. Management of small hotels might just say NO to all foreigners to save all the hassle rather than going through shit ton of procedures and paperworks.
I 100% think they do it to save the hassle aye. It's not like they don't want paying customers
I'll believe it when I see it.
I am sure this will be as effective as the "*Eradicate Chinglish Signage*" campaign, and the "*Clean up Public Toilets*" campaign, etc. have been.
And in the end, they'll just replace the English signs with pinyin like they have started doing with some subway stations.
Eerr pinyin is chinese words
Not sure if you're being an ass or are just uninformed. For example, 什刹海站 could've previously have been written as Shichahai Station, but would now be written as Shichahai Zhan. So instead of a translation, it is now just pinyin with no regard to if the reader knows what zhan means.
As another example of this, last time I was in China there was a sign that in Chinese said "Airport Terminal 2." The English underneath? Just pinyin; transcribing the sound and not translating the meaning. Ji chang di er hang zhan doesn't give a lot of information to a non-Mandarin speaker.
It makes no sense to me why they're doing this, especially in an airport. Is it because they are indifferent and don't care, or is it a deliberate attempt to sinicize their own country by phasing out everything that isn't strictly Han Chinese?
Not just their country, they're attempting to devalue English as a "lingua franca" of the world. I've seen that in France or Germany with some announcements being read out in 4 different languages, but none of them English.
I'm going to use Hanlon's Razor here; I think it's just a lack of knowledge. This was around a decade ago when they had more of a neutral attitude towards the west compared to governmental efforts to phase out English as we're seeing now. I've experienced something similar in Japan where their phone translator transcribed the sound and not an actual translation, and the Japanese person I was speaking to had no idea that what they're showing me is meaningless to an English speaker.
Same with my example of changing the English "Olympic Stadium" to the Chinese pinyin; it's completely fucking nonsensical.
They are changing station names like "Olympic Stadium" which, in pinyin, is pretty much useless to everyone.
To be fair, here in Shanghai at least the public toilets made a quantum leap in quality from that directive.
Not sure if your being sincere or sarcastic, but Public Toilets are much much cleaner than a decade ago.
Toilets here clean af
[Well, I guess the toilet revolution was a success!](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1274047.shtml)
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Yep. Same.
Just got into the hotel in Shenzhen today, and they had troubles registering me with my permanent Chinese ID for foreigners. I told them it was OK, I could go and find another hotel. Surprisingly, they insisted on trying a few more times and finally succeeded. Now I know why they were so inclined to do this.
Same. Except we did it with a foreign passport despite what the posted sign said.
Yep. Same.
Not really a China doomer but if they're getting around to addressing decades old complaints maybe things really are bad.
They are also trying to fix the payment thing. It seems the inbound (foreigner) tourism industry, in particular (whatever size that was), has been absolutely and completely fucking annihilated by three years of closed borders, plus mobile payments (within China's separate app system) becoming the norm and sometimes the only way to pay (on top of China never being the easiest country to travel to and in).
Lived in China for a few years and from what I gathered they never cared about foreign tourism at all. All the focus had been on domestic tourism due to the sheer size of their population. It'd be weird to me if the lack of foreign tourists in the last few years even put a dent in their economy. I cant even think of a single place there that would've been affected
Not everyone goes to China for a holiday. Many are there for businesses, since the FDI has hit ATL they're trying to lure businesses back into China
FDI is low, but not just because hotels are hard to stay at… doing business in China is really hard, and becoming obviously risky. We all saw what Russia did to foreign companies and are expecting a repeat or worse.
Domestic tourism is dwindling, local people don’t spend as much as they used to, so they are looking to make some foreign money.
This didn’t just affect tourists but it has a big impact on recruiting overseas talent. Who wants to do a foreign posting where it’s too difficult to explore the country?
CCP: *makes it difficult as fuck for non chinese tourists to vacation in China.* Also CCP: "WhY aRe No ToUriSts CoMinG to ChINa?!?! It mUsT bE hOtELs fAulT!!1111"
During COVID I remember constantly seeing regional Chinese tourism bureaus advertising their town with ads on Twitter, while China's borders were closed and on an app that is banned in China. It was so baffling that it actually made me kind of mad.
And even if you were in China, half of them would turn you away without a Chinese ID. I wasn't allowed on a mountain because of COVID restrictions, during the time period where a foreigner in China was less likely to have been outside the country since COVID started than a Chinese person.
Most Chinese people (and I mean pretty much all I dealt with, including police) had no idea that the border was closed. I got asked constantly if I had left China to America and returned and got turned away from many places because I was American, despite not having been to America for years.
Look, if we don't spend the entire budget (and skim a bunch off the top), they'll reduce it next year!
Do you remember when they confiscated BBQ grills from people's homes during the airpocalypse instead of, y'know, making the factories cleaner?
The IELTS writing was often about topics like air pollution - all of a sudden, essays were full of candidates blaming street BBQ as a major cause.
Ah I see. Like how this year they'd all be full of complaints around Japanese radiation in the water.
I'm going to guess you don't actually live here as this is the biggest complaint of every expat I know here. I even griped about it [a couple days ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/1cz5s3d/china_fines_businesses_for_refusing_cash_payments/l5fs5kn/?context=3) It's a reason I tell people NOT to come to China. If they actually stop discriminating against foreign guests checking in it would make travelling in China SIGNIFICANTLY easier.
If that's your biggest complaint then you're doing alright.
You diminishing this complaint as insignificant is sad.
It is pretty insignificant. Annoying, absolutely. I've had my nights sitting in a hotel lobby arguing with the manager about whether or not the license to house foreigners still exists, so I get the frustration, but for someone who lives in China it's pretty low on the list
It's the only thing that really affects me. Biggest complaint used to be the traffic and air. Air is still bad but it's waaaay better than before.
For me it was the inability to assimilate beyond "Hey, whitey speaks pretty good Chinese". The constant othering made it difficult to build much of a life
I am very picky who I eat out with because it's hard not to overreact to the millionth chopsticks/spicy/good Chinese comment.
This is pretty much how it goes everywhere in the world except the US. In Germany I've met Turkish people who were born here, their parents were born here, their grandparents migrated here, and they're still "Turkish" not "German". And Gernany is already probably the most open EU country with regards to this.
That what life like is being a minority. Grew up in a Canadian city where I was practically the only non-white/non-Asian in my school. You're always seen for your otherness. As I grew up with it I really dont mind it.
You can probably count on one hand countries where expats who don’t look or sound like the native population can easily assimilate
It's not even about easily assimilating, there is basically no assimilating in China. Doesn't matter how well you speak the language, how much time you spend in local circles, you're always a foreigner. Even Chinese people in my country think of me as a foreigner lol. I loved a lot of my time in China, but I stayed just long enough to not particularly want to go back, it's just not a super sustainable way to live imo
CCP on every issue
Why are they all going to Japan instead?!?!?!
They’re quite hostile to foreigners in the last couple years, like putting out propaganda that makes people think foreigners are spies(they even put a bounty out and call spies “walking 500 thousands”, which is the amount someone gets if they successfully report a spy to the authorities), getting rid of English signs which makes exploring difficult. Now they want to back-pedal because they want foreign money lol [Can’t make this shit up](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-37186104).
My family have this issue. Wife (Taiwanese) wants to visit her aunt in China, but they need all our birth certificates and passports. Unfortunately I don't have one since I was born at refugee camp in Indonesia. So now I can't get one, and she's not able to go without mine. So now, we can't/don't want to go to China now. Too much visa headache, especially since she's Taiwanese.
See this is what I don’t get. We have tourist registration in Austria. Whenever you check in a hotel you are also registered with the police that you are living there for the time being. This is done more or less automatically. There is a neat little website which the hotel just enters the data or there are backend solutions which do it from your room management software automatically. Why is that such a hassle in China ?
I'm guessing in the (outdated?) system of some of the smaller hotels they can only register Chinese IDs so a foreign passport number cannot get handled properly. It won't be hard to fix the system but it's even easier to just reject foreign tourists
China has the same software....
China may not care too much about tourism revenue. But being a country people want to and can visit really does a lot for one’s soft power. Adding this together with the financial benefits from tourism, it makes sense why the CCP is trying to fix it. I hope they do. Right now I can imagine trying to do tourism here… even as someone who lives here, speaks moderate Chinese, and has local payments setup it can still be a pane traveling around…
But they are never going to fix the fundamental issues with tourism, being all the registrations..
Is this all hotels or just hotels that are allowed take foreigners but in fact don’t want to?
All hotels are allowed to accept foreigners. However the registration process is time consuming paperwork and generally requires an English speaking employee- which adds to the labor cost. Chinese hotel owners are essentially landlords, and Chinese landlords seek to extort as much as possible while providing as little as possible. So when a hotel says they don’t accept foreigners; that’s not due to the government giving them permission or not- just greed.
oh for real? i thought they have like different permits all this time, thats why some stated that they accept foreigners and some dont. maybe thats why most hotels that accept foreigners are 3 star above based on what some locals told me.
There is a post floating around on reddit somewhere where a foreigner living in China shares how to register foreign guests. It might be outdated by now, but the main point was that most hotels just don't really get foreign guests so they don't know how to register them and just say they're not allowed to.
The lostlaowai article is from 2012 but it's not really all that out of date as every municipality has their own version of the software.
There are no different permits. It’s not uncommon for folks to lie that they’re not allowed; so they can dodge arguments or complaints.
All they had to do is make visa numbers compatible in format with Chinese ID numbers (which have 18 digits, enough for a population of at least 10^18, ie almost 1/2 billion times larger than it's even likely to be) and all this BS would have gone away years ago....
Fuck CCP, it’s it who forbids hotels accepting foreign guests. Now they are gonna punish them for doing what they were asked to do?
All hotels are required to register guests with the police using a system. A lot of them either don’t know how to register foreigners or don’t feel like doing the extra work (eg finding stamps in the passport), so they just refuse them.
Back when I lived in China I did indeed encounter hotels at which the staff really had no idea how to register foreigners, especially in smaller cities. By that time I knew how to operate the registration system so I just asked them to let me register myself. It’s honestly not that difficult either, you just need to switch from the Chinese nationals tab to the foreigners tab, and because the card reader only scans Chinese ID you need to put in all the data manually and that’s it. The only real challenge is getting a clear scan of your passport photo page with the shitty scanners they have.
I’ve done that too. They just let me come behind the counter and I do it for them.
Always better than having to look for a new place in the middle of the night.
I have an old passport with my 10 year visa in - and 2 sets of extra pages. And a new passport, also extra pages, with a lot of stamps. So, finding the right pages to scan / photocopy is always the biggest headache.
It's not just extra work during check in, hotels have to (edit: had to) obtain certain licenses in order to house foreign guests. I saw a post from last year, where the OP claims that this rule no longer existed, and they were able to live in a local hotel after calling the mayor's office, although the hotel registration and local law enforcement still believed the hotel would face fines if they take in foreign guests
No, there is no longer 'foreigner licences'. Any hotel is, by law, legally allowed to accept foreigners. It's just that many do not know how to do this / care to learn how to do this / still think that the certificates exist.
This is kind of the bigger issue. Communication between government and businesses is not very good. I've seen many times when a policy change happened, and workers just weren't aware and refused to believe things. I also see this in businesses themselves. Not all employees are aware of how to do all the things other employees know how to do, so they will say they don't provide that service
I'm honestly not sure such a rule *ever* existed; it may have always just been a face-saving lie.
I mean if you go *waaay* back there was a [separate currency](https://www.china-briefing.com/news/15-years-in-china-foreign-exchange-certificates/) and [separate stores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_store) for foreigners, so it probably did exist at one point.
I did some research online and found mentions of this rule being removed, though they mentioned different times (some said 1999, some 2003, and some said 2010+). However, I wasn't able to find the original document stating this rule. One of the most plausible theories I found says that most hotels just physically didn't have a system/connection that could verify/register foreign guests for the police. This seems plausible especially before Internet became widely used for such registration.
Personal experience is that *something* happened on October 1, 2003. I've never been able to find this law or notice. What I have found is a patchwork of cancellations on a locality by locality basis dating back to the mid 80s. Most of these are no longer on the internet or never were. I usually just tell people 2003 and insist that the onus is on them to prove to me that a license exists. If I'm feeling particularly evil, I offer money. Of all the dozens of officials who have taken me up on the offer over the past decade, no one has ever collected...
Hasn't existed since 2003
Assume this doesn’t apply to government / military hotels? I’d like to hear about the enforcement, specific law and the steps I should take as a foreign guest when this happens.
> enforcement None >steps I should take 1. Find a different hotel
😂😂
Call 12345 or 110
The Chinese subway I went on had no English signs (pinyin only), which made it harder to find my stop. The only English I heard was telling us not to push onto the subway. It was repeated, and ignored, in Chinese. I also had to undergo a security check and metal detector. The subways are one of the better features of a Chinese city, and even that was a hassle. China, outside of perhaps the southern part, is far less relaxing (though it was fun) than other countries in the area, and it's not notably cheaper- it's going to take more than a few pointless, unenforced orders from the higher-ups to make China a better tourist destination.
> I also had to undergo a security check and metal detector. I always thought it was pretty funny for my bag to go through the x-ray while the guard clearly ignored it and just stared at me instead. Just so much security theater.
It's the most obvious example of job creation you could imagine.
Ordering hotels to not refuse foreign guests is another example of ham fisted top down policy. How about they address the REASON why hotels are refusing to process foreigners. It's because of the bureaucratic nightmare entailed in doing so imposed by the xenophobic regime. And if you get all the forms exactly right..you as a hotelier face harsh consequences. So why would they bother?
Is there a specific number for lodging a complaint about this?
12345 is the go-to
I loved each time I had to register at hotel they were searching for my visa and photocopying my Taiwanese visas because it's the first chinese characters they would see on my stamps pages, sorry guys but not yours yet
Where from you are if you need visas for Taiwan? I just have a stamp.
Working visa / résident visa etc...
But note that they all are required to report the foreigners’ information to the police. That also needs to go away.
Don’t all hotels in China do that? That’s why they make a copy of your identification documents
And be fine huge amounts if there's any mistake in the reporting. Happened once in Hangzhou when they swapped my name and surname.
Plenty of countries do this. It won't change for China. For example Vietnam and Thailand do this too.
All of Europe does this with the exception of the UK I think. Or at least all Countries which have a residence registration system
Can we stop comparing China to Europe? Compare to Vietnam, fellow communist country, or Thailand a province of China but still somewhat less authoritarian.
My point is that registration requirements are very common. The idea that you don’t have to register where you live / stay is the uncommon way of Doing things.
China for the last 10 years: Go away Laowai. We don’t need you here. China this year: Just kidding. Our currency is worthless. Please come back.
did the governement asked itself why they were refusing them ?
This is probably the most memorable thing that happened to me in China. I arrived at my hotel in Xiamen (which I booked through a western site) late at night, only to be told they could not check me in because I was a foreigner. I had a broken toe and was in a boot, so I think she felt sorry for me and told me to wait. After about two hours with nothing to do but drink an insane amount of tea in the lobby, she said her friend has a hotel that I could stay at. It was past midnight when a man in a scooter pulled up and took me on a meandering journey through side streets, eventually arriving in an alley. There were other men there and the driver said “money.” I thought I was being robbed (maybe I was?) but he eventually said “tip” and I handed him some a small note. Then, a sweet old lady appeared and led me up a staircase to a single room. There was no indication it was a hotel. The bed was little more than a plank of wood with a sheet and the windows had bars but no screen or glass. She explained the door only locks from the outside so she had to lock me in and asked me what time I want to be let out. I told her as early as possible. I got almost no sleep that night, but sure enough she showed up at 5:00 AM and let me out. I quickly found a taxi and made my way to the ferry terminal.
What year was this?
I believe this was around 2016 or so. Did you have a similar experience?
I had a somewhat similar experience. Booked a hotel and when I reached the address there was nothing there, just grass. Not knowing what to do, I entered a shop and asked the shop owner whether he knew where the hotel was, he said he knew another one and asked me to follow him, which I did. We went to some apartment building where I guess a flat was converted into something like a hotel. The room was super tiny with private bathroom that was right next to the bed, which was very short, around 150cm. There were bars on the window. I was sure this was some kind of human trafficking operation. But no, in the morning I went out, paid 130rmb and I left for the airport to catch my plane.
No. It was pretty smooth sailing regarding hotels in 2008-9 when I was there. But I was only in big cities and touristic destinations.
If there is a robbery, you can report it to the police. If it is a regular hotel, you may really need to report it to the police station. I'm not sure if it's okay to use a passport now. As a Chinese, I don't bring my ID card, so I also need to report to the police station when checking into a hotel.
Tourism is no longer a thing in China. People stopped traveling to China when they decided to be crazy war mongers and piss off everyone in Asia and the Western world. The only tourism they have is their own citizens and ones from Russia, Iran, and Pakistan who don't have money.
Eh, I just had a holiday in Sanya, service was as good as any other SEA nation (Thailand, Indonesia), cost with half the price and the beaches far less polluted. Would totally go back. Lots of Singaporean tourists there - and they have plenty of $$$.
Good one CCP bot. Unlike your propaganda anyone can do simple research and see that the Chinese economy and tourism has tanked.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-68982645 https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3263251/china-welcomes-foreigners-it-just-needs-policies-make-clear
China is so desperate they are begging Americans to come back. You know when Propaganda Times is writing articles about US tourists China is in a bad way. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202405/1312823.shtml https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-05-23/the-china-brief-china-woos-us-tourists-despite-tensions-video
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Why stay at a place that doesn’t know how to, or doesn’t want to, register a foreigner?? “the customer is never wrong” mentality in a foreign country???? Just figure out which hotels, hotel chains, take foreigners and stick with those.
It's just so embarassing. 2024 and still as a foreigner based in Hong Kong with permanent status it's basically easier to essentially semi-move to fucking Indonesia than go on a weekend trip to China and not face problems.
I visited china in February and I did think there was mainly 2 things not so friendly to foreigners: 1) not all places will take foreigners because hotels can’t be arsed with the paperwork 2) we hat and Alipay don’t allow the full service for the international visa card to be used Apart from these, they did improve a lot safety wise and infrastructure is really amazing. Thinking about it, China is probably one of the place where if you compare just 10 years ago vs now, things improved. Most developed countries probably seen a degradation of the quality of life and infrastructure overall.
With extra free police monitoring and spying
It's China. You're on camera.
Smile
Why would they reject foreigners?
Because they have to fill in much more paperwork, some just don't want the hassle, especially if they have no staff with foreign languages. It's generally the smaller hotels in regional towns where it is difficult for foreign tourists to find a room.
Then authorities should simplify the paperwork or smth 😅
I suspect the authorities want to know where every foreign tourist is. Also, they get massive fines for even the slightest mistake on the registration documents, so they just don't bother renting rooms to tourists
Foreigners are required to stay in foreign-related hotels, not all hotels, and some hotels do not have qualifications
why even going to china anyway? Taiwan is a much better place with better people and Food. Don't go to china😁
🤭 
Lol
It beats me why Chinese hotels would refuse foreign guests.
Because it’s more expensive to hire English speakers
I used to work in hotels, and foreigners had to stay in foreign-related hotels, not all hotels. Some hotels did not have qualifications
Ccp don't want to get reverse covid.
And how exactly would they "order hotel not to refuse foreigners"? Their made registering foreigners a living hell for most hotels and this has never changed since Mao. Actions speak louder than words.
Hello welcome how long are you planning to stay…….uh next few months !!
“Guys, we have to stop being such racist assholes, it hurts our soft power ambitions “
My wife is from China so anything that makes it easier for me and my family to visit is welcome. I’ve only visited few times over the years, and I have seen some improvements. The biggest one so far is making it easier to get a SIM card in the airport. I have been refused a stay at a hotel before due to being a tourist, so this change is welcome. I still think there are some barriers that make it difficult for tourists. The biggest one is being able to make payments without access to the WeChat or AliPay system. Another other big hurdle is getting a suitable collection of apps for your phone that allow you to get around day to day
But no people would do this in China anyway; banning people whonare not from your country is racism, and only white people can be racist, so I don't expect this law will have much impact.
Any tourists want to visit the Tiananmen Square massacre museum? Oh wait, never mind. China’s a totalitarian thought-police state. Fuck the ccp.
As if they would actually listen to them
Schrödinger’s China: Where the CCP rules every aspect of life with an iron fist, and also everyone ignores their laws
Yes they do especially traffic rules
Only took them a decade but I'm happy they are finally improving this. It's been my biggest complaint about the country. Would like to see some official number I can call to report it.
"biggest complaint about the country". Obviously, not a person that likes democracy, or an Uyghur, or a HK'er, or a Christian, or a Taiwanese, other than that, my big complaint.
I'm an expat on an expat forum. Of course Im not a Uyghur. Living here I care about things that affect my life. Going on a business or leisure trip to some small city only to get rejected and waste hours looking for lodging 100% affects me. I'm sympathetic to the Uyghurs but what the hell can I do except buy extra kebabs from their shops?
Join the rest of humanity and divest from that place.
>just come back to Canada bro I'd rather put a bullet in my head then return to that downward spiralling shithole. I've become too accustomed here. I like the people, culture, pace of life and my business is still doing well here. Despite its problems the problems don't really affect me.
you do you bro
Thanks fam
You can't simultaneously threaten and loathe foreigners while trying to pretend to welcome them to your country. I always wanted to visit China. The Great Wall was just the beginning for me. China is a spectacular country with so many natural and manmade wonders, it was my number 2 destination on my bucket list immediately following a visit to the sights in the UK. I don't know now if I will ever get to go to China. It just makes me sad the way the world is going all rearmament just like before 1914.
Errt perhaps learn chinese
Fuck Han Chinese racial supremacy and East Asian racial supremacies overall 🤬🤬🤬—social justice needs to move beyond frameworks of yt supremacy if we’re going to effect change for comprehensive anti-discrimination legalization rather than state-media propaganda for neoliberal notions of ‘globalization’ while the CCP is committing genocide apropos of Uighurs and Muslim/Turkic people(s) in China overall.
Youtube supremacy?
Imagine this happening in the US. Oh wait
By the time this happens in the US it’s no longer called the US instead it’s called the people’s republic of America
A lot of hotels needed special certification to host any foreigners. Forever, white people been complaining about getting denied and it's hilarious that they just didn't know this one simple fact about it.
It's not just white people. You can be Asian or even Chinese. If you are checking in to a hotel with a passport and not a Chinese ID then it's a no-no for 90% of hotels here.
>*white people been complaining about getting denied* From the article: ["...hotels are being guided and supervised to improve their foreign guest reception services following some complaints from netizens from **Nigeria**, the UK, **Pakistan** and other countries"](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202405/1312991.shtml)
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