Charles Liu, Chinese tourists have ditched their earlier preferences to travel to Japan and South Korea in favor of a new top international destination: Thailand.
The revelation was recently made by popular Chinese travel booking platform Ctrip, which listed the most popular countries for Chinese tourists.
Singapore and South Korea were named as the second and third-most popular spots, while last year’s favored Chinese travel hot spot Japan came in fourth.
Rounding out the top ten are Malaysia, the USA, Australia, Vietnam, Canada, and the Philippines.
Ctrip also said that Chinese visa applications to Pakistan increased by a remarkable 37 times, while it doubled for Malaysia. Even though it ranked in third place, Chinese visa applications to South Korea rose by 76 percent. Additionally, Ctrip said multiple entry visas are becoming more popular among Chinese travelers.
Thailand attracted 7.9 million Chinese visitors last year who spent an average 47,000 Baht per trip.
In another Ctrip report released on May 31, Hong Kong was named as the top destination for individual Chinese tourists last year.
Seoul, South Korea and Phuket, Thailand came in second and third place, respectively.
In 2015, 120 million Chinese outbound tourists spent a total of $104.5 billion.