(Yicai) July 4 -- Nine of the 10 top international destinations for Chinese tourists this summer are in Asia, according to data from online travel platform Qunar.Com.

Even though the Union of European Football Associations’ European Soccer Championship in Germany and the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics in France increased Europe’s popularity as a destination for Chinese travelers, Asian countries remain the top destinations, mainly thanks to visa-free policies for Chinese citizens.

Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, all countries that do not require visas for Chinese passport holders, are among the most popular Asian destinations this summer, even more popular than before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019, according to Qunar.Com.

A total of 20 countries, such as Thailand, the Maldives, Kazakhstan, and Albania, have signed mutual visa-free deals with China, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Laos introduced a visa-free policy for Chinese tourist groups, valid from July 1 to Dec. 31. Travel orders of Chinese tourists to the Southeast Asian country surged over 140 percent this summer from a year earlier.

Azerbaijan also introduced a one-year unilateral visa-free policy for Chinese tourists, which boosted searches for travel products for the country on Qunar.Com by 120 percent.

Melbourne and Sydney are also popular destinations for Chinese travelers because of the five-year multiple-entry visa policy between Australia and China, according to Tongcheng Travel.

In the first two weeks of June, flight bookings to Paris in July from major Chinese cities climbed over 70 percent from a year earlier, with hotel bookings in the French capital up nearly 150 percent, Tongcheng Travel data showed. During the Olympics, group tour bookings to France surged 225 percent from the same period last year.

China’s inbound tourism also surged this summer holiday season. Orders for inbound trips to China doubled from a year earlier on Trip.Com, with the travel orders from 14 countries enjoying visa-free policies to China, such as France, Italy, Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand, up 150 percent in the period.

Editor: Futura Costaglione