Does China actually check hotel reservations listed on visa application, and how?

Question

As many of you know, China requires you to list your full itinerary with dates and addresses when applying for a tourist visa. I probably won't risk it, but I'm just curious, what if you said you were staying at such-and-such hotel but had never actually booked it?

Or to put it another way, how do they actually verify this? Do they have a list of all bookings in the country?

Which of course begs the question why they can't just look people up in their list rather than requiring people to list it out again on the form, but that's a separate question.

Answer 1

China asks for a copy of your itinerary and simply typing out something will not fulfill this need. They want to see a booking confirmation, ie from the hotel or a booking agency, same for your flights.

I don't think they actually double check what you submit. It might be difficult to check with a hotel, as the bigger OTAs like booking.com, agoda, etc, often do not send the room name list to the hotel until closer to your arrival date.

Answer 2

From my last experience, no. My Chinese visa was issued well before I made my hotel reservation, though I did actually stat at the hotel I put on the application.

Additionally, I cancelled the flight itinerary immediately after printing it for the application.

The advice here, China 10 Year Visa Requirements only mentions providing an 'intended' flight itinerary. No mention of accommodations.

This is my personal experience, your experience may be different.

Also, the Visa application makes no mention, and I did not provide any evidence, of medical insurance. The whole process was rather uneventful.

Answer 3

The plane and hotel reservations have to be filed with the application in case of a tourist visa. There is some leeway about this, especially when you use a travel agency. But generally you need the documentation. Including for the travel insurance.

However, what can be done, especially if you apply through an agency, is that the agency makes some reservations, prints them, submits your application, and cancels all reservations.

For 6-month and 1-year tourist visas, I've no idea whether the reservations are still required – my travel agency has been dealing with that for the last 9 years, and I've never had to book anything.