(Yicai) June 27 -- Online searches for travel to Laos have shot up after the Southeast Asian country unveiled a visa-free policy for group tours by Chinese people.

The 15-day visa waiver applies to passport holders from the Chinese mainland, as well as Taiwan and the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism announced yesterday.

Searches for Vientiane, the capital of Laos, surged 91 percent after the announcement compared with the previous week, making it one of the most popular destinations on Qunar’s platform, according to the Chinese online travel agency. Searches for train travel to Vientiane increased threefold, it said. 

Bookings for travel to Laos by Chinese mainland tourists have nearly doubled  year on year since the start of 2024, according to Trip.Com, China’s largest online travel agency.

Travel bookings for the summer holidays have soared more than 140 percent compared with the same period of last year, making Laos one of the top 10 outbound tourism destinations by bookings growth on Trip.Com’s platform. 

The new policy means that there is now a visa-free zone for Chinese tourists spanning Laos, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, which is expected to further boost inbound tourism to Southeast Asia.

Data from the flight tracker Flight Master showed that the number of direct flights from the Chinese mainland to Laos has already recovered to almost 88 percent of the pre-pandemic level, with direct flights to Vientiane available from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Kunming, Haikou, and Nanning.  

There is also one daily international train round trip, traveling from Kunming in China’s Yunnan province to Vientiane on the China-Laos Railway. A one-way trip takes nine hours and 26 minutes, allowing people to arrive the same day. 

Editor: Tom Litting