Staff members welcome Chinese tourists at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Sept. 25, 2023. Thailand extended a warm welcome to the first batch of visa-exempt flights from China on Monday, marking the launch of the nation's fresh initiative to reinvigorate its Chinese tourist market. Photo: Xinhua

Bookings of Chinese tourists for outbound travel during the upcoming Spring Festival holidays (February 10-17) have boomed, as the eight-day holidays are expected to become a global Golden Week, serving as a shot in the arm for the global tourism recovery.

Since mid-December 2023, searches for overseas hotels on Chinese online travel agency platform Qunar started to show a notable increase, with countries and regions including Thailand, Japan Singapore, Australia and Indonesia as well as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region among the hot outbound travel destinations, according to a report the company sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

Increases of flights to participating countries of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative have also driven up outbound travel bookings. According to Qunar, searches for hotels in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt so far in January are up 100 percent month-on-month.

In addition, some countries have stepped up marketing in China in order to attract Chinese travelers. 

For example, the Qatar Tourism Authority released a video on its WeChat account that invites Chinese tourists to see pandas in Qatar during the upcoming Spring Festival holidays.

China is one of the most important tourist sources for multiple countries. The return of Chinese travelers is expected to give a boost to the growth of many countries, especially those that see the tourism sector as a major driver of economic growth, such as the Maldives.

Xu Xiaolei, a marketing manager at China CYTS Tours Holding Co, told the Global Times on Tuesday that inquiries for outbound travel on the platform during the upcoming holidays have increased by 200 percent compared with the previous Spring Festival (January 21 to 27, 2023). 

CYTS Tours offers a series of in-depth outbound travel products to countries including France, Italy, New Zealand and Australia, which are popular among Chinese travelers.

"In general, Chinese tourists show strong willingness and consumption power during the Spring Festival holidays. The outbound tourism boom during the Spring Festival holidays is expected to trigger a super consumption week around the world," Xu said.

Xu said many countries are recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for efforts to strengthen international flights and hospitality facilities to boost the recovery of the global tourism industry with quality services.

Thanks to the implementation of five measures to facilitate foreign nationals coming to China as well as moves to waive or ease visa requirements, China's inbound tourism market is also expected to get a boost. The measures were effective from January 11.

According to data from online travel agency Trip.com, the number of inbound tourism bookings for the eight-day holidays has surged 10-fold compared with the Spring Festival in 2023, with travelers mainly coming from Japan, the US, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia.

Apart from enthusiasm for ice and snow tourism in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, other activities with local characteristics such as lantern festivals, temple fairs and hot spring tours in other cities across the country will also likely to see a boom during the Spring Festival holidays, Trip.com said.