China has decided to extend its visa-free scheme to even more European countries, as it seeks to encourage more tourists to visit.

However, the UK is conspicuous by its absence from the list, despite British travellers being among the top 10 visitors to China.

Citizens from Cyprus, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia can now travel to the Asian country without having to obtain a visa.

This brings the total number of European countries that have been granted visa waivers to 17.

Beijing is keen to attract more visitors – both tourists and business people – to China in a bid to stimulate the economy.

The scheme has been implemented incrementally since the beginning of the year.

The full list of European countries now includes Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.

Travellers from these nations will be allowed to stay in China for 15 days without a visa until the end of 2025.

Other countries on the list include Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the aim of this move was to “facilitate the high-quality development of Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges and high-level opening up to the outside world.”

China is still trying to build back its tourism sector after the devastating impact of the Covid pandemic.

It was only last year that Beijing lifted its quarantine obligations for visitors to the country.

The travel sector has been decimated by Covid and has yet to see numbers of travellers return to pre-pandemic levels.

In 2023, China recorded 35.5 million entries and exits by foreigners, according to immigration statistics.

That compares to 97.7 million for all of 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

However, last year saw a surge in bookings from Europe to China with a 663 percent increase from 2022, according to Trip.com

The data shows the UK and Germany were among the top 10 sources of inbound travellers to China globally.