(Yicai) Sept. 19 -- The number of bookings for overseas trips from China during this year’s eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, also known as Golden Week, surged almost 2,000 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Chinese online travel agency Trip.Com.

Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom are among the most popular destinations chosen by Chinese people traveling between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6, data from Trip.Com showed.

Searches for Thailand as a travel destination from China soared 800 percent after the Southeast Asian country announced on Sept. 23 that it would introduce a five-month visa-free policy for Chinese tourists from Sept. 25, the data also showed.

Outbound trips to Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, also increased significantly during this year’s Golden Week, according to data from Chinese online travel agency Ly.Com. Some hot vacation packages for the Middle East and Africa are sold out on Ly.Com.

According to Tuniu, another Chinese travel agency, outbound tourists accounted for 23 percent of the total for this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday.

Domestic tourism bookings surged nearly 600 percent in the period. Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou remained among the most popular destinations during the Golden Week, Trip.Com said, adding that bookings for Tianjin, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, and other new first-tier cities rose over 500 percent.

Bookings for flight tickets to Hangzhou during the Golden Week increased almost 500 percent from a year earlier, while hotel reservations soared over 800 percent, thanks to the 19th Asian Games, which will be held in the eastern Chinese city from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8.

The number of bookings for international flights to Hangzhou during the Asian Games skyrocketed over 21-fold from the same period last year, with an over 300 percent increase in reservations for hotels near the event’s venues, according to tourism website Fliggy.Com. 

As of Sept. 15, reservations for popular domestic hotels on online booking platform Qunar jumped 514 percent compared with the same period in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione