SHANGHAI, 23 January 2020: A Hotelbeds’ study shows Thailand, Japan and Singapore lead the top 10 international destinations for Chinese travellers during Chinese New Year that gets underway on 24 January.
The chart leads off with top destination Thailand, followed by Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, the US, Philippines, Spain, and Italy.
Hotelbeds noted that Chinese travellers are visiting a wider range of countries with hotels in 104 countries booked up from 102 last year and 88 in 2018.
Vietnam and South Korea dropped out of the top 10 countries this year, replaced by Spain and Italy respectively.
However, the two Asian destinations remain popular with Chinese tourists coming in 11th and 15th this year.
China remains the fourth biggest source market for Hotelbeds globally, and the company offers Chinese travel intermediaries – such as tour operators, airlines, points redemption schemes, and retail travel agents – access to over 180,000 hotels, 24,000 transfer routes and 18,000 activities, available in over 185 countries.
Hotelbeds managing director China Forrest Zhang confirm a dramatic shift in how people are travelling in recent years.
“Travel demand surges massively during the Chinese New Year, but traditionally this holiday has been spent at home with family in China – and now we are seeing more and more Chinese people travel not just abroad, but to a more distant and wider range of destinations.
The Chinese New Year holiday, also known as Spring Festival, is a seven-day national holiday in China that takes place from Friday, 24 January to Thursday 30 January. The date of the Chinese New Year varies each year, according to China’s lunar calendar, and last year started 6 February.
Recently the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) predicted that in 2020, for the first time, more than 7 million trips would be made across the border during the holiday, compared to about 6.5 million in 2018.
