Overseas destinations popular for upcoming holidays
Balloons over the rock formations of Cappadocia
Chinese tourists will travel further and for longer during the upcoming eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, major Chinese travel operators have revealed.
The number of Chinese outbound travelers accounts for 23 percent among all those making trips during the holiday, with long-distance outbound travelers accounting for 9 percent, online travel operator Tuniu said.
Thailand, Maldives, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, France, Switzerland, Italy, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are some popular options for Chinese outbound travelers during the holiday.
The Blue Mosque
Online travel operator Tongcheng Travel said the average air ticket price during the holiday had grown 13 percent compared with this year's May Day holiday.
Longer flying distance was behind the rise. An outbound travel peak is estimated for the holiday, it said.
The itineraries of some niche destinations in Middle East such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were well sold.
"It's my first outbound trip after the pandemic and I will spend 12 days in Malaysia," said Shanghai resident Kevin Chen. "Domestic destinations are usually overcrowded during long holidays and I hope to flee the crowds."
He started preparing for the trip in early September.
"Destinations with e-visa, visa on arrival or visa-free policy for Chinese tourists are my priority options," he added.
Diving with a turtle in Malaysia.
Shanghai-based online travel operator Trip.com said a blowout increase of outbound tourism during the holiday was forecast as its bookings involving outbound destinations had soared nearly 20 times from the same period last year.
Group tours involving "Belt and Road" countries such as Uzbekistan, Iran, Georgia, Kenya and Sri Lanka had witnessed the biggest increase compared with pre-pandemic period.
It said customized group tours are popular during the holiday in pursuit of in-depth tour experience and high-quality service with outbound orders of customized group tours surging 200 percent from August.
Sea kyaking in Malaysia
Meanwhile, outbound tourist destinations have launched intensive promotion campaigns in China recently to fuel their tourism recovery.
Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency said that it has set the target of 230,000 Chinese tourists by the end of this year with the ultimate goal of 1 million Chinese tourists per year.
According to the 2023 second-half planning of the airlines flying between China and Türkiye there's a seat capacity of nearly 234,000 in a total of 695 frequencies, according to TGA.
The primary goal is to improve the airline bridge and to support the launch of more frequent direct flights from various airports in China to Türkiye.
Türkiye was listed in the third batch of 78 countries and regions for outbound group tours, which was released on August 10 by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Tourism traffic between the two countries began to increase rapidly since then.
