(ECNS) -- During the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, Chinese tourists took 474 million domestic trips, an increase of 34.3 percent compared to the previous year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China on Sunday.

Domestic tourists spent a total of 632.69 billion yuan (about $87.93 billion), a 47.3 percent increase year-on-year. Approximately 6.83 million people traveled in and out of the country, with about 3.6 million outbound, and approximately 3.23 million inbound trips.

Since the beginning of the Spring Festival travel rush, residents from the northern regions have been heading south, while those from the southern regions have been going north for skiing and ice viewing, which has become a new trend.

With favorable policies including visa exemptions, convenient customs clearance, and the resumption of air routes, inbound and outbound tourism has accelerated its recovery and development.

Outbound tourism mainly focuses on short-haul cross-border trips to China's Hong Kong and Macao regions, as well as to countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia. Some travel agencies' "Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore" travel products have basically returned to the level of the same period in 2019.