Foreign tourist applies for temporary entry permit.

Preliminary figures show that by 12 pm on Dec 30, the cumulative number of inbound and outbound passengers inspected at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport for 2024 topped 14.6 million, significantly outpacing the 8.4 million handled for the entire year of 2023.

The performance represented a whopping 73 percent year-on-year increase, positioning the airport – located in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province – as the second busiest of all airports in the country.

For two consecutive years, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has held top position among all super-sized airports in China in terms of the proportion of foreign visitors entering and exiting the country.

The achievement is said to have significantly bolstered the opening up and high-quality development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

In the past year, the Baiyun Border Checkpoint processed over 2.28 million inbound foreign nationals, marking a notable 93 percent year-on-year increase.

Among the visitors, nearly 780,000 entered the country under unilateral or reciprocal visa exemptions, constituting around 34 percent of the total inbound foreign visitors.

The unilateral visa exemption policy is said to have proven highly effective, particularly in the substantial surges in European and Asian inbound foreign nationals, rising by 88 percent and 85 percent, respectively, to 90,000 and 560,000 visitors.

Capitalizing on the advantages of the transit visa-free policy, the 2024 China Import and Export Fair once again attracted a raft of visitors, with around 190,000 inbound foreign traders, up 47 percent on the 2023 fair.

Of these attendees, 43,000 foreign nationals entered the event visa-free, making up 23 percent of the total number of inbound traders.