Chinese looking to avoid the crushing travel rush during Spring Festival find Europe a good alternative to get away from it all

The Chinese New Year mass migration has begun. It is estimated over the Spring Festival period there will be some 2.56 billion passenger trips, some 11.6 percent more than last year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Transport. But the travel is not restricted to domestic destinations as more and more Chinese holidaymakers will be making their way to Europe, among other overseas destinations.

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Last year, the Chinese made some 3.67 million passenger trips to Europe, a 15.8 percent increase on the 3.17 million they made in 2009, according to Tourism Economics, a leading tourism research body.

And these visitors like to shop. According to Global Blue, the tax refund company, the average expenditure by the Chinese on what it defines as high-end goods, was 718 euros in the first 10 months of 2010, an increase of 99 percent on the same period of the previous year.

Li Shuang, a 24-year-old post-graduate law student at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, is someone who will be traveling to Europe for the Spring Festival holiday.

The native of Hangzhou, who will be going with her father and mother on a 10-day tour of Italy, says: "We want to take a leisurely break and drink coffee, chat and enjoy the sunshine and get some understanding of the culture and feel of Italian cities."

Li, whose previous experience of Europe has been on study trips to the United Kingdom, and her family will travel independently and they hope to go to Florence, Pisa, Rome, Verona and Siena. Their overall trip will cost about 5,000 euros.

"We didn't want to go on a group tour since these can be very rushed, taking in too many countries over a short period of time.

"We think we handle independent travel quite well since we were all in Singapore last Spring Festival when we also went to Thailand. We think we will be able to get around Italy by ourselves."

David Goodger, director, Europe for Tourism Economics, which has bases in Oxford and Wayne, Pennsylvania, says the Chinese outbound tourism market is expanding.