Foreign tourists enjoy themselves at Tiantan in Beijing. Photo: VCG

With the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays approaching, long-haul outbound travel from China is picking up steam. The Global Times learned from several travel agencies that bookings for long-haul outbound trips during the holidays have risen sharply.

Wang Wei, president of Shanghai Spring International Travel Service (Group) Co, told the Global Times on Sunday that as of now, outbound travel accounts for more than 50 percent of its bookings for the upcoming holidays. 

Many cross-ocean long-haul travel products that were originally set close sales by the end of August had sold out by mid-August, such as group tours to Spain, Portugal, the Balkans, Northern Europe, Greece, and New Zealand. Also, the number of such products rose by more than 20 percent year-on-year, Wang said.

Moreover, medium- and long-haul products originally scheduled to close sales by mid-September, such as Central Asia routes, the "Caucasus Silk Road," and in-depth long-haul tours to Australia, are also basically sold out, Wang added.

China is preparing for an extended travel peak, as the Mid-Autumn Festival begins on September 25 and runs for three days, immediately followed by the week-long National Day holidays. Travelers can even enjoy 13 consecutive days off if they take three days of leave.

Data from Qunar showed that hotel bookings by platform users now cover more than 3,800 cities worldwide, hotel bookings in popular countries are up by 48 percent year-on-year, and ticket bookings for popular long-haul routes of more than 8,000 kilometers are up by more than 30 percent year-on-year.

At a time when spring is in full bloom in the Southern Hemisphere, ticket bookings to Cape Town, South Africa, have increased 4.3 times year-on-year. In addition, driven by visa-free policies or newly added routes, ticket volumes to destinations more than 10,000 kilometers away, such as Sao Paulo, Brazil, Lisbon, Portugal, and Santiago, Chile have doubled, according to Qunar.

A report released by Fliggy showed that popular destinations within the "four-hour flight radius" such as South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia, as well as long-haul vacation resorts such as Australia and Italy, are on the list, while niche destinations such as Slovenia, Romania, and Madagascar have become dark horses in terms of growth.

Booking data reflects strong demand for international travel during the holiday period.

As of September 10, more than 2.18 million inbound and outbound flight tickets were booked for the period from September 25 to October 7, a year-on-year increase of about 7 percent, according to data from Umetrip.

In terms of outbound travel, Umetrip said that the most popular holiday destinations are Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, London, Moscow, Hanoi, Sydney, among others. While destinations in surrounding Asia remain highly popular, long-haul destinations in Europe are also gaining momentum.