People visit the Mid-Autumn Festival lantern display held at Singapore's Gardens by the Bay on Sep 21, 2023. Photo:Xinhua

Search enquiries for Singapore in Chinese cyberspace witnessed a surge as the two countries plan to put in place a 30-day mutual visa exemption agreement in 2024, and it is widely believed the policy will attract more Chinese travelers to vacation in Singapore and its neighbors such as Malaysia and Thailand.

Data from travel platform qunar.com sent to the Global Times on Thursday showed, the search index of Singapore increased by four-fold compared with last week. Meanwhile, the search volume for the tickets of Universal Studios Singapore shot up 40 percent month-on-month.

Tongcheng Travel also said that searches for Singapore tourism increased 18 percent compared with the same period the day before, led by prospective holiday-goers in Guangdong, Shanghai and Jiangsu .

Singapore and China held a meeting of the China-Singapore Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation in Tianjin on Thursday, where Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong revealed that the two sides will enhance people-to-people exchanges through the 30-day mutual visa free arrangement, according to zaobao.com.

In response, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that relevant authorities are in close communication on the details, and the implementation of visa-free arrangement is a big boon for people of both countries. Both China and Singapore expect relevant arrangement to take effect at an early date.

Earlier, Thailand said Chinese tourists can enter Thailand without a visa between September 25 and February 29, 2024. Malaysia said in November that it will implement a 30-day visa-free policy for tourists from China from December 1.

After Singapore's visa-free policy for Chinese citizens is officially implemented, it will connect with Malaysia and Thailand to form a golden Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand visa-free route, a popular route for Chinese travelers, according to Cheng Chaogong, a senior researcher with Tongcheng Travel.

"It is expected that tourism in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand will heat up," Cheng said.

Previously, Malaysia announced a 30-day visa exemption policy for China, but tourist numbers have remained relatively flat. Once going to Singapore can be visa-free, the two ASEAN countries are expected to become popular destinations during the coming Spring Festival, said Xiao Peng, who is from the research institute under qunar.com.

Local and international airlines are adding up flights between China and Singapore, boosted by fast recovery of the travel market.

Low-cost airline Scoot said in July that it has resumed routes to the Chinese mainland since the beginning of this year, and has continued to increase its capacity in response to Chinese people's accelerated demand for international travel.

Scoot said in a note sent to the Global Times on Thursday that it welcomes this news of visa-free travel arrangements between China and Singapore, and eagerly anticipates the release of more detailed guidelines. Scoot is poised to providing essential support for enhanced connectivity and further enhancing convenience between China and Singapore, it added.