Chinese tourists are finding Pakistan an interesting place to spend their leisure time. According to a latest report, the number of tourism visa applications submitted by Chinese citizens has increased by 37 times during the first half of 2016. These figures show their increasing enthusiasm in visiting Pakistan lately.

A leading online travel agency in China named Ctrip stated that Chinese tourists have matured in their choices. Thus, adding more destinations to their preferred options and finding Pakistan ‘a dark horse’ this year, as per China Daily report.

The marketing director of Ctrip, Shi Yuzhuan, said:

“Driven by the strong relations between the two countries, many Chinese tourists put Pakistan on the top list of their outbound travel plans”

The President of Pakistan, Mamnoon Hussain highlighted strong ties between the two countries as it highly supports China’s policies and principles. Chinese citizens also admire Pakistan’s stance on key issues particularly South China Sea, Taiwan and Tibet.

In the recent past, Chinese visitors were discouraged from visiting Pakistan despite cordial relations between the two countries due to security issues.

As per 2015, Chinese outbound tourists paid 120 million visits to foreign countries. Most of them went to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Moreover, they also went to some western countries including UK and U.S as well.

Chinese outbound tourists would continue to expand due to changing dynamics globally as their destination choices have changed.

Other than Pakistan, visa applications by Chinese tourists also increased to other destinations in the first half year of 2016. They included Kenya, Finland, Egypt, South Africa, Argentina, Czech, Israel, and Iceland.

Shi Yuzhuan believes Chinese tourists are now more matured

Shi Yuzhuwan stated that:

“Many traditional popular tourism destinations are losing visitors. For an example, France has less Chinese visitors because of terrorist attacks. On the other hand, Chinese tourists are getting more mature and they would like to explore new destinations”

Shi Yuzhuan also mentioned:

“Many of the visa applications were from second and even third-tier cities of China”

According to recent China Daily report, the visa applications to Czech submitted from second and third-tier cities jumped by five folds after Czech opened more visa centers in five cities.

Source: brecorder.com / image credit: APP