The United Kingdom division of the 2025 Weixin Mini Program Global Innovation Challenge was launched on Tuesday in Oxford, England, with the theme of designing built-in features to enhance the experience of foreign tourists in China.

Weixin mini programs are application-like features within the Weixin ecosystem, offering functionalities including shopping, travel booking, banking and payment, government services, and many others. These lightweight programs allow users to access a wide range of services without needing to download separate applications.

The "apps within an app" feature is highly popular in China, and many European companies, including Germany's Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines, Eurostar, and the UK's Farfetch, have developed mini programs to offer services tailored to Chinese customers.

Pan Hang, assistant director of the China National Tourist Office in London, said as enthusiasm for travel to China also grows, the biggest obstacles foreigners face in China today may no longer be language barriers or differences in transportation systems, but rather the highly localized digital ecosystems of applications and services they must adapt to.

A series of policies has been rolled out to make traveling in China more accessible. For example, foreign travelers can now link credit cards from major international issuers, such as Visa and Mastercard, to Weixin Pay.

Pan expressed hope that, with young participants from around the world coming together to brainstorm, the journeys of foreign travelers could become smoother.

The Weixin Mini Program Global Innovation Challenge, open to primary and secondary students from grade one to 12 worldwide, is now in its fourth edition, focusing on artificial intelligence programming. Last year, over 500 proposals were received from 128 schools across the globe, covering areas such as social care, education, tourism, and more.

Zhou Boyun, director of Tencent's Weixin Strategic Research Institute and initiator of Weixin Mini Program Global Innovation Challenge, said artificial intelligence can generate code, papers, images, and even videos, but it can never replace the kindness that flows from the human heart.

She said Weixin has always been dedicated to breaking down communication barriers, as communication fosters understanding, understanding leads to connection, and connection drives innovation.

zhengwanyin@mail.chinadailyuk.com