(Yicai) Aug. 10 -- China is permitting the resumption of outbound group tours to another 92 countries from today, which include very popular holiday destinations for Chinese tourists such as Japan, South Korea and the US, in a move that is expected to greatly boost international travel.

This is a huge step towards the full recovery of outbound tourism, Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of travel agency Spring Tour told Yicai. It is the third batch of countries to be reopened to group tours by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism since the end of the pandemic, bringing the total to 152.

The moment the news was released the number of visa enquiries on online travel agency Tongcheng Travel surged almost four times from the same period the day before while flight and hotel searches also soared. Turkey, Australia and Japan were the most searched countries of those that have been newly opened up.

Searches for overseas travel destinations jumped over two-and-a-half times on travel site Mafengwo and that for flights and hotels soared more than 20 times. Group tours to Japan, Australia and Singapore are particularly popular and Japan searches soared four-and-a-half times. Most travel plans are being made over the week-long National Day holiday in October.

“Before the pandemic, China was the world’s largest outbound tourism market for many years, and Chinese tourists played a pivotal role in boosting the development of tourism in many countries and promoting the recovery of the world economy,” said Feng Rao, president of the Mafengwo Tourism Research Institute.

“The newly opened routes will have a big impact on people’s holiday plans over the National Day break and international travel is likely to peak then,” Feng said.

Around 40.3 million Chinese tourists traveled abroad in the first half, of which 93.9 percent chose Asian destinations, according to a report released by the China Tourism Academy today.

Editor: Kim Taylor