Indonesia becomes favorite destination for Chinese new year 2016

Chinas largest online travel agency, Ctrip.com, has revealed that Indonesia is one of the ten favorite destinations for Chinese tourists who want to celebrate Chinese New Year 2016 abroad.

The ten favorite destinations based on the bookings made by the customers since mid January 2016 are Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States of America, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia.

Easy access in obtaining visas is one of the strong reasons they chose such countries, one of local media quoted the Publicity Manager of Ctrip, Yan Xin as saying here on Sunday.

Indonesia ranked eighth of the ten countries that became the favorite destinations of Chinese tourists.

Deputy of Sales affairs Director for the Asia Pacific Mission of the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism, Jordi Paliama said it was a good news to consider Indonesia as one of the Chinese tourists favorite destinations.

“We would continue to improve our a variety and innovative promotions to attract more and more Chinese tourists,” he said in the event of “Indonesia Direct Promotion”, Beijing.

The Ministry of Tourism has set a target of 200 visits of Chinese tourists for January-February 2016. It increased around 50 percent from the amount of 137,181 Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia at the same period in 2015.

To increase the number of Chinese visits, the Ministry of Tourism also conducted a promotion programs in Wuhan, Shanghai, and Beijing.

Ctrip.com estimated around six million Chinese people would spend their Chinese New Year holiday in foreign countries, starting from 7 February, with some 100 countries to be visited including Antarctic.

East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea remained the most popular destinations, while Singapore and Thailand became two Southeast Asian countries which attracted a lot of Chinese tourists during the celebration of the Year of Monkey.

Around ten thousand Chinese tourists have been making reservations for holidays in Thailand, while some other preferred to choose Universal Studio, Singapore, to enjoy the warmth of tropical breeze.

For a cruise tourism, around 90 percent of Chinese people chose to go to Okinawa and Kagoshima in Japan, and Jeju Island in South Korea.

The Office of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) reported that in 2015 there were 5.2 million Chinese people spent their Chinese New Year holiday abroad. The number was increased around 10 percent compared to the same holidays in 2014.