中国农历新年掀旅游热潮

Traveling has become one of the most popular ways for the Chinese to celebrate Spring Festival.

According to statistics from the China National Tourism Administration, 231 million domestic trips were made this year, an increase of 14-percent compared to the last year's "Golden week."

Chinese people made 4.7 million trips outside China during the annual festival, a year-on-year increase of over 18-percent.

Cao Yuwei has more.

Report: China boasts a rich tourist landscape, with spring-like islands on the south and snow to the northeast.

Dai Bin, the President of China Tourism Academy, says the two regions above have become the most popular domestic attractions.

"Winter resorts like Hainan and Guangdong and the ice-snow tour of the northeast cities such as Heilongjiang are the top tourist draws in this year's Spring Festival. Take Hainan for instance, it has received 1.18million tourist trips, a year-on-year increase of 37.5%. Main tourist destinations have seen big growth in their tourist market. "

Many shows and ceremonies are organized for Chinese Lunar New Year. Cultural activities like temple fairs and flower markets have attracted lots of visitors.

According to a survey by the academy, foreign tourist destinations have surpassed the domestic spots for the first time.

Family tours have been a mainstream of the outbound tours. Islands like Bali and Phuket are most popular with Chinese tourists.

But Dai Bin is noticing differences among Chinese tourists when it comes to choosing a foreign holiday.

"Outbound tourism increases quickly in the year of horse. Family tours, in most cases, have been predominant. People celebrate the Spring Festival while traveling abroad. We have noticed some changes in the tourist market. Japan and Korea are popular for eastern China while the popular newly emerging market goes for Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand trips."

Many foreign tourism institutions have begun to value China's emerging tourist market. An overall upgrade for Canadian visas began during the Lunar New Year. Chinese tourists could enjoy more conveniences like lower fees for visas.

Quite a few countries are extending an olive branch to China's outbound tourist market.

Countries that are visa-free for Chinese tourists have increased to forty five, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Bradley Brouwer, the manager of the South Africa Tourism Administration in the Asia-pacific region, says South Africa, a top tourist draw for Chinese travelers, has taken a series of measures to facilitate the application for visas.

"We've tried very, very hard to make visa consultation much easier. So what we've done is we've in 2011 we opened up two visa offices outside the embassy to be easy. It is getting better gradually by gradually. The most important thing is that the visa's turnaround time is reduced from seven working days to five working days. And in some instances, they finish in four working days. So we're trying very hard to getting better. I believe in Lunar New Year, the visa offices would be very busy."

An increasing number of countries are providing conveniences like simpler visa procedure and better arrangement to issue visas for Chinese visitors.

For CRI I'm Cao Yuwei.