As winter draws near, the first wave of foreign tourists is flocking to the big bathhouses of Northeast China.
In recent years, thanks to the spread of short videos, the Northeast’s “big bathhouse” culture has rapidly broken out of its niche. For many southern Chinese tourists, getting a full-body scrub in the Northeast has become a must-do activity in addition to playing in the snow — and now, this trend is spreading to international visitors as well.
Some foreigners preparing to visit China were amazed after watching the videos, as if they had discovered a new world: “If it really costs only 35 dollars a day, I want to book for five days.”
According to Russia’s RIA Novosti, during the first month after the visa-free policy took effect (September 15 to October 15), hotel bookings in China by independent Russian travelers doubled year-on-year.
One month into the visa-free policy, Heilongjiang Province recorded more than 46,000 Russian arrivals as of October 16, an increase of 28.4% year-on-year, with roughly 43,000 entering visa-free.
This also helps explain why bathhouses in Harbin have recently been packed with foreign visitors — many of them Russians taking advantage of the visa-free policy.
