Planning a domestic trip has become a new normal for Chinese globetrotters over the last year as the demand that used to be for outbound travel has turned into domestic travel in the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, a report showed.

Aerial photo taken on Dec. 8, 2020 shows two cruise ships, the Changle Gongzhu (or Princess Changle, L) and the Nanhai Dream at a port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

Unveiled by Chinese tourism website Qyer.com, the report indicated that 83 percent of the surveyed globetrotters have made domestic trips, with 65.8 percent of them traveling at least four times last year, and 46.3 percent of them spending an average of more than 30,000 yuan ($4,626) during their trips.

Sun Jie, CEO of Chinese online travel agency Ctrip, said the platform registered year-on-year growth in hotel room reservations for overnight stay, bookings for domestic flights, and tickets for tourist attractions over the week-long National Day holiday in 2020.

The shift has contributed to a significant growth in the domestic tourism market, said Wang Xingbin, a tourism expert with the Beijing International Studies University, and has also brought greater popularity for featured tours and in-depth travel among tourists.

According to the report, the keyword search volume for featured tourism programs including camping, recreational vehicle tours, road trips, and skiing grew by 303.5 percent, 243.5 percent, 78.6 percent and 54.6 percent, respectively.

Tourists who have regular outbound travel plans usually want higher-quality trips and have stronger spending power, said Wu Liyun, another tourism expert with the Beijing International Studies University, adding that consumers’ demand for higher-quality travel will force travel companies to provide more premium tourism programs.