New Year's Day travel sees popularity amongst Chinese travelers

Chinese consumers have shown an ever-increasing enthusiasm for going traveling during the upcoming New Year's Day holiday, and trips related to hot springs, theme parks, skiing and tropical islands have been particularly popular.

During the first half of December, Tuniu Corp, a Nanjing-based online travel agency, saw the number of bookings of travel products during the New Year's Day holiday jump 220 percent year-on-year.

Travelers are taking longer trips and traveling farther, with nearly half of travelers chose to take trips that last three to four days. Those who come from Shanghai; Beijing; Nanjing, Jiangsu province; as well as Guangzhou and Shenzhen of Guangdong province, indicated particular interest in taking trips during the holiday, Tuniu found.

Meanwhile, spending the holiday in Southeast Asia to ring in the New Year has become popular for Chinese travelers, as Thailand and Malaysia both started implementing a visa-free policy for Chinese visitors, and Singapore and China are about to carry out mutual a visa-free policy for up to 30 days.

Multiple travel agencies have seen robust bookings of private group tours of itineraries that combine several destinations in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn