Lessons from abroad

The number of foreign study tours by Chinese students is likely to hit 1 million this year, Yang Feiyue reports.

Li Jiaruo had an unforgettable and fruitful trip to Canada in July 2016. The now 19-year-old opted for a two-week summer program at a physics theory research institute in Toronto, where she learned about dark matter, visited quantum labs and had interesting interactions with her peers from all around the world.

There was also a trip to Niagara Falls.

"I signed up because I wanted to improve my spoken English and adapt to an English-speaking academic environment before college," says Li.

She was accepted by Cornell in 2017, and has just returned from the United States to spend some time with her parents in Hunan.

"I do not know how much the (Canada) experience worked in my college admission, but it was fun and enabled me to make lots of friends," she says, speaking about her 2016 study tour to Canada.

Li's parents were very supportive of the pre-college programs and covered her flights and tuition.

Now, with money at hand and increasing focus on an all-round education and a desire to have their children see the world, parents are willing to send their children on study trips both at home and abroad.

The number of foreign study tours by Chinese students is likely to hit 1 million this year, involving 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) in expenditure, China's biggest online travel agency, Ctrip, reports.

And domestic study tours are expected to hit 9 million.

The travel agency's study tour business has grown impressively in recent years.

Those choosing tours abroad grew by 50 percent during the 2017 summer and the 2018 winter vacations year-on-year. The tours on average cost about 29,000 yuan each.

Those opting for domestic study tours grew by 120 percent, with costs pegged at about 4,200 yuan.

The United Kingdom, the US, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and France are among the most popular destinations among Ctrip users.

Domestically, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Qinghai, Shanghai, Beijing, Yunnan, Sichuan province's Chengdu, Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen are the most appealing in China.