Chinese mainland has 38,943 travel agencies: report

BEIJING - The Chinese mainland had 38,943 travel agencies by the end of 2019, according to a report from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Saturday.

South China's Guangdong province has the most travel agencies with a sum of 3,281, followed by Beijing with 3,062, said the report.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, Chinese travel agencies handled nearly 4.88 million inbound trips, showed the report, noting that the Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan are among the top 10 tourist source markets.

Also in the fourth quarter, travel agencies organized almost 14.62 million outbound trips for mainland tourists. The most popular overseas destinations included Thailand, Japan and Vietnam, according to the report.

Travel agencies also organized more than 50.73 million domestic trips for mainland tourists during the same period. Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces ranked the top three in the number of tourists received.

The market shares for inbound tourism, domestic tourism and outbound tourism are 5 percent, 73 percent and 22 percent, respectively, according to the report.