China Travel
China's outbound travel market, which had been dormant for the past three years, has quickly recovered as the country downgraded its management of COVID-19 and facilitated the smooth and orderly cross-border travel of Chinese and foreign nationals in January.
Travel agencies and online travel companies began to offer flights and hotel packages to tourists starting Monday when China resumed outbound group tours.
A total of 20 nations are among the first to receive Chinese group tours, including Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore, African countries like Kenya, European countries like Switzerland, Oceanian countries like New Zealand, and Latin American countries like Argentina.
According to the search data released by a travel platform, the booking volume for group outbound travel packages covering flights and hotel one week after the Spring Festival holiday rose by more than three times than that during the holiday. The most popular destination is Thailand, followed by the Maldives, Egypt, New Zealand and Indonesia.
At the Kunming Railway Station in southwest China's Yunnan Province, travel groups have started their journey to Laos. The outbound travel orders of Kunming tourists increased by 1597 percent year on year during the Spring Festival holiday.
Guangzhou City in south China's Guangdong Province also saw a frenzy of trip planning from tourists and a spike in online searches for overseas destinations.
A travel agency in Chengdu City of southwest China's Sichuan Province has seen skyrocketing phone calls consulting outbound tours, with Thailand being the most popular destination.