China's outbound tourism has been growing robustly with the New Year's Day and the Spring Festival approaching.

Zhang Qingzhu is Market Manager with Beijing-based China Comfort International Travel Service. She says tours to Southeast Asian countries, Hong Kong and Macao are popular among tourists.

"More than 100 people come here everyday to get information about tours to Hong Kong and Macao. Right now, the climate there is warmer and more comfortable than Beijing. So many mainland tourists will go there for shopping."

Hong Kong's year-end sales season usually kicks off at Christmas. At a time of the global financial crisis, this year's sales events started earlier with steeper discounts of 10 to 40 percent.

In Guangzhou, package tours to European countries, Japan, South Korea, and other southeast Asian countries are much cheaper than before due to the gloomy global economic situation.

Zeng Yi, Market Manager with Guangdong Nanhu International Travel Agency, says their promotion has attracted many customers.

"We had some promotions recently because the global financial crisis affected our business. For example, if the customer's cost hits 1000 Yuan, we will cut it by 150 Yuan. This promotion attracted many tourists for long-distance travel. Our turnover of this year's Spring Festival increased by 80 percent compared with the same period last year."