China Minutes has launched the Chinese Cities Overseas Tourism Influence Rating, ranking the Chinese cities with the best overseas marketing influence for tourism.
Global interest in exploring China has been steadily increasing since the end of the pandemic, now eclipsing pre-pandemic levels. Many Chinese cities have been expanding their overseas marketing and influence, attempting to attract more international tourists. In order to scientifically assess the overseas marketing communication effectiveness of Chinese cities, China Minutes officially launched the Chinese Cities Overseas Tourism Influence Rating during the World Travel Market (WTM) 2025 in London. The rating aims to evaluate, through data-based research, how effectively Chinese cities attract international attention and to provide data insights to enhance their overseas communication strategies. The full report will be published shortly.
Based on a comprehensive assessment of more than 50 major tourist cities in China, this rating was built based on data collected from official tourism websites, international social media and global search engines. It not only maps the current landscape of China’s inbound tourism communication, but also offers a data-driven guide for cities keen to optimise their international outreach strategies.
Data from China’s leading online travel platform trip.com shows that the number of inbound visitors to China in 2025 doubled compared to the previous year. By the end of September, total inbound and outbound trips by foreign nationals had already exceeded the full-year number in 2024. In the first eight months alone, over 25 million foreign tourists visited China. China’s new visa-free policies acted as a key catalyst in the market’s recovery: in the first three quarters of 2025, approximately 21 million foreign visitors entered China without visas, representing a year-on-year increase of 50% and accounting for more than 70% of all inbound arrivals.
During the 2025 National Day “Golden Week” holiday alone, Shanghai welcomed 2.6 million foreign visitors, demonstrating an increase of over 90% compared to the same period in 2024. Chongqing, leveraging its distinctive “cyberpunk” cityscape, recorded a phenomenal 10 times surge in visitors from Indonesia and Malaysia. Nevertheless, industry research also indicates that travel interests are concentrated heavily on a small number of well-known cities.
This rating covers more than 50 Chinese cities. The ranking is conceived not merely as a list of comparable results, but as a dynamic analytical framework and knowledge-sharing platform.
For Chinese city administrators, it enables benchmarking and reveals best practice, supporting the optimisation of their international marketing communication strategies. For overseas tourism professionals, it serves as a practical collaboration guide for partnership seeking in China. For global travellers, it opens a new window towards the diversity and depth of China’s culture and history.
Data-Driven Support for China’s International Cultural and Tourism Communication
Sam Xia, Project Manager of this rating, emphasised the significant differences exist between Chinese and Western audiences in terms of media channels and content preferences. In some cases, overseas marketing strategies adopted by Chinese cities were ‘mismatched’ with their international audiences’ behaviour, and therefore reduced their communication effectiveness. In response, this rating adopts an innovative, data-driven methodology focusing on three primary channels through which international travellers obtain information:
- Chinese cities’ official tourism websites – assessing the existence of practical guides, timeliness of the published information and multilingual nature of their websites.
- International social media performance – analysing the numbers followers, engagement and reach across worldwide social platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
- Global search volume – measuring international attention using Google search data.
This integrated framework goes beyond single-dimensional evaluations of culture or scenery, but directly addressing cities’ international communication capability in the digital era.
Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi’an and Nanjing ranked top five in the 2025 ratings. Beijing leads the list, benefiting from its seamless integration of world heritage and marketing innovation, outstanding official website design, and exceptional engagement on international social media, particularly on X. Shanghai’s influence is driven by its global-oriented content creation ecosystem; overseas columnists living in the city introduce it to global audiences through their local experience and international perspectives, generating viral success on Instagram and TikTok. Chongqing has gained global visibility through its distinctive “cyberpunk city” visual identity, with especially strong video engagement on TikTok and Facebook, highlighting its powerful social media appeal.
Beyond the Ratings: Building Bridges between China and the World
According to the research, the deeper vision behind the creation of this ranking is to respond to China’s strategic target of enhancing its international communication capability, and to help Chinese cities to compete internationally in the tourism industry.
With China’s inbound tourism market achieving year-on-year growth of 19.6% in the first quarter of 2025, global interest in the country continues to rise. However, many cities still face mismatch in their overseas marketing communication approaches. This rating seeks to address that challenge by providing data-based analysis to create more targeting international communication strategies and to build connections with global tourists.
Looking ahead, China Minutes plans to enrich the scope of its data sources, enhance its data analysis and interpretation, and encourage exchanges between Chinese and international tourism sectors. The vision of this rating is to establish a practical approach to Chinese cities’ overseas communication and a sustainable communication strategy for China’s cultural and tourism industry.
Top Ten Chinese Cities by Overseas Tourism Influence in 2025
- Beijing – Outstanding official website design, leading social media engagement, and a balanced narrative combining cultural heritage with modernity.
- Shanghai – As a global metropolis, its multicultural content and well-developed English-language content ecosystem establish its core strengths.
- Chongqing – A top destination benefits from the social media-era, with video contents driving the global spread of its “magical 3D city” image.
- Xi’an – The highest Google search interest among mainland Chinese cities; its TikTok content has achieved phenomenon-level engagement.
- Nanjing – Innovative integration of commercial and tourism resources on its official website, offering international visitors a seamless journey from information searching to trips booking.
- Chengdu – Leveraging the panda IP and its distinctive leisure lifestyle, it has achieved the highest total video views on Instagram.
- Guangzhou – Its deep Lingnan cultural heritage and close ties with overseas Chinese communities provide cutting-edge communication capability.
- Sanya – Benefiting from Hainan Free Trade Port’s visa-free policies, international visitor numbers have surged, and its tropical resort image is highly recognisable on social media.
- Guilin – Effective use of user-generated content (UGC) on social platforms enhances the credibility its travel experience.
- Dunhuang – By combining ancient Silk Road heritage with modern fashion and the space-industry image of nearby Jiuquan, it presents a distinctive narrative bridging past and present.
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