359 cities, four without enough hotels — and why the threshold matters more than the gap

Last month, we reported on the number of hotels in China that allow foreign travelers to check in. Our readers frequently quoted 359 cities as the total, but we focused on the gaps in this data rather than the total count. Out of the 359 cities in our database, only four lack enough hotels to be considered useful for travelers with foreign passports: Alashankou, Beitun, Kunyu, and Sansha.

This information highlights a design decision rather than a data quality issue. Each of the four cities has hotels listed, but none of them can be easily booked by foreign travelers due to a lack of suitable accommodation options. The threshold of eight hotels per city was chosen to ensure the information is both meaningful and actionable for travelers.

Below this threshold, city pages stop providing useful information and become a dead end, making it difficult for travelers to compare options. To improve the user experience, we replaced the four low-count cities with the nearest city that meets the eight-hotel threshold. This decision allows travelers to access more useful data and better planning resources.

In summary, the threshold of eight hotels per city is the key factor that determines the usefulness of hotel listings for foreign travelers. By focusing on cities that meet this threshold, we provide more relevant and actionable information, even if the total count is slightly lower than other booking sites.