Spring Festival travel spree

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Returning home and being reunited with family is the most important tradition of China’s Spring Festival but now many Chinese families prefer to be together and enjoy the holiday elsewhere.

344 million trips were made during 2017's Chinese New Year "Golden Week", up 12.2 percent year-on-year, according to data from the National Tourism Administration (NTA).

China’s tourism industry has benefited from the passion for family travel, with a total revenue of 423.3 billion yuan for the industry in 2017－almost four folds of the number in 2013, official data shows.

How is a 7-day holiday spent in winter? Some Chinese choose to go skiing and see the ice sculptures in Harbin, a famous tourist attraction as well as the capital city of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.

More people go to warmer places to escape the cold, so most of the 10 most popular destinations for the 2018 Spring Festival holiday are located in the south of China, according to a list from a forecast report jointly released by the China Association of Travel Services and Tuniu Corp on Jan. 17, which was based on bookings for trips that have been made for the upcoming golden week.

In addition to domestic destinations, Chinese tourists have a rising interest in overseas travel.

Official data showed that Chinese made 6.15 million trips during the Spring Festival gold week last year and that number is expected to grow to 6.5 million this year.

It is not surprising that neighboring countries, especially those in Southeast Asia, get the most Chinese tourists due to their warm climate and short distance, but US, France and Australia are also included in this year's top 10 list.

(Infographics by Yin Yating)