More than 30 percent of Chinese tourists who plan to go abroad during the Spring Festival are likely to head to France, with Britain and Australia also popular.

These findings are from a joint survey by market information provider Nielson and Ctrip, a domestic tourism company.

For the precious "golden week holidays" that start on Feb. 7, more than 40 percent of the 3,000 netizens interviewed said that they planned to travel.

Although the majority favored domestic tours, such as shopping trips to Hong Kong and Macao, overseas travel was on the rise, Ctrip's Wu Jiaoli said. "Southeast Asian countries and the islands, such as Bali and the Maldives, are also very popular," she said.

On average, the prospective tourists were prepared to spend 6,444 yuan (about 895 U.S. dollars) per person for their holiday trip.

China recently reduced the one-week May holiday to three days, which was expected to boost travel during the other two long national holidays. However, the number of outgoing Chinese during the Spring Festival did not seem to be significantly higher, said Sun Changwei, manager of China CYTS Tours. "There would be natural growth, but that's all." he said.