Sunan Shuofang International Airport in Wuxi. [Photo/VCG]

On Thursday, China announced the resumption of group tours to 78 countries, including popular travel destinations such as Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

The announcement has sparked a surge of tourists making inquiries to travel agencies, and they quickly added new travel options for the countries.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a notice that, starting from Thursday, outbound group travel services offered by travel agencies and online travel companies will resume.

Since February, the ministry has resumed group tours to 60 countries in two batches.

Since the trial resumptions of outbound group travel has been resumed for Chinese citizens, the overall outbound tourism market has remained stable and orderly, playing a positive role in tourism exchange and cooperation, the notice said.

China had the largest outbound tourism market in the world in 2019 before the COVID-19 epidemic, with 169 million trips being made that year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.