Tourists running to marathon destinations

They've peered from the Empire State Building, admired masterpieces at the Louvre and relaxed at the hot springs near Mount Fuji. Now Chinese tourists are tackling the next thing on their must-do lists: world-class marathons.

The trend is apparent at the Gold Coast Airport Marathon, held every July in Queensland, Australia. The number of Chinese participating in the race has risen from just 27 in 2013 to 161 last year and 251 this year.

China's outbound tourists hit 100 million last year and have unseated Americans as the world's biggest spenders on foreign travel, Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics, says in a research note on Tuesday.