Fruitful holiday

Chinese and international students visit Stanford University this month. [Photo by Jia Zhutao and Nan Shan/For China Daily]

More Chinese students are putting overseas study tours on their agenda this summer. Consisting of language courses, sightseeing and international communication, study tours meet the demands of Chinese parents and students for a long and fruitful holiday, despite costs of around $4,000 to $6,000.

This year saw the number of students going abroad for study tours increase by nearly 40 percent, with reservations for tours starting almost a year ago, according to English First, a Swedish-English education company in China.

A recent report published by a Chinese tourism website showed most study tour participants were from middle schools. According to the report released by tuniu.com in June, 73 percent of their participants in 2016 were middle school students, 11 percent primary school students and only 3 percent college students.

Students of a younger age seem to be the upward trend.

"The biggest growth of our clients in the past few years is among primary school students, over 50 percent," says Joe Chiu, country manager of China's EF International Language Center.

Unlike study tour participants in other countries who are at least 13 or 14 years old, Chinese parents seem to be more willing to let their children go on tours at a very young age, Chiu says, noting that the youngest Chinese participant in his program was only 5 years old.