Record Number of Chinese Tourists Plan to Go Abroad for Spring Festival

Record Number of Chinese Tourists Plan to Go Abroad for Spring Festival
Jan 19, 2017 By eChinacities.com

Editor’s Note: More Chinese than ever are traveling abroad for the Spring Festival. This is due to relaxed visa requirements for Chinese tourists in many countries, the wider availability of low-cost group tours and an increased number of international flights to and from China.

This Spring Festival, more Chinese will travel outside the country than ever before. Many countries plan to relax visa requirements and implement other measures to attract more Chinese tourists.

The Spring Festival holiday will begin on January 28 and will last for 10 days. Many will extend their holiday and take January 27 to February 2 off. The Chinese New Year is generally seen as a holiday to see family, eat, and drink. However, Forbes reported on January 11 that many Chinese plan to travel abroad during the holiday period.

The Most Popular Destinations

China’s largest online travel agency Ctrip recently released its “2017 Spring Festival Tourism Big Data Report.” The report states that 6 million Chinese tourists will travel abroad for the Spring Festival holiday in 2017. This is the largest number of Chinese traveling abroad for the holiday in history. Ctrip said that the top ten most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists are Thailand, Japan, the United States, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Low Prices for Tours

The report also stated that tour group prices will not be as high as usual during the Spring Festival period. There are still many last minute spaces available on trips.

Tour prices to Thailand will be 15 percent higher during the Spring Festival period, and 10 percent higher in the United States and the Philippines. However, prices to Japan and many other countries will not change. The number of tourists from China to Egypt, Turkey, and Italy fell sharply in 2016. The price of group tours to those countries are reduced by 30 percent during the Spring Festival holiday.

Holiday travel will begin on January 23 and peak on January 25. Many travelers will leave a few days before the official start of the holiday to try to avoid the Spring Festival crowds.

Relaxed Visa Requirements

Countries are continuing to relax visa requirements and increase the number of flights to and from China to attract Chinese tourists. Many have also introduced low cost tours and travel agencies for Chinese tourists. Large numbers of Chinese tourists are expected to travel to the United States and Australia over the 10-day holiday. The United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Thailand have recently implemented visa free policies for Chinese tourists.

Source: QQ News

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Keywords: Spring Festival tourists Chinese tourists

5 Comments

All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.

victorale

I believe is more than that, they can't know how many, is impossible.

Jan 29, 2017 15:03 Report Abuse

donnie3857

600 million eh! This would be a great time to visit China while half the population is away from home.

Jan 21, 2017 00:16 Report Abuse

retiredinchina

yes, export your crowds and traffic to the rest of the world's tourist destinations, what a great idea, then the whole world can just stay home.

Jan 20, 2017 19:23 Report Abuse

Guest593844

6 million — not 600 million

Jan 20, 2017 11:06 Report Abuse

Anton1991

Chinese tourists break all the records in Russia, I think everywhere else also =)

Jan 19, 2017 15:11 Report Abuse