Polar magic

Many Chinese tourists choose to travel to the South Pole to enjoy a different vacation. [Photo provided to China Daily]

It's summer in Antarctica, and Chinese tourists are finding it easier to enjoy a one-of-a-kind vacation among the penguins, Yang Feiyue reports.

Traveling to the South Pole isn't very difficult anymore.

Wild penguins, glaciers, floating ice and the auras of the polar day and night created by Antarctica's unique location are enticing adventurous tourists to head that way.

"It's not difficult to reach the Antarctic now, which is just a strait away from Argentina, and the region's special status as 'the end of the world' alone is enough to attract tourists," says Jiang Yiyi, director of the Beijing-based China Tourism Academy's International Tourism Development Institute.

In addition, many tourism agencies have launched trips to the polar area and offer well-considered services, says Jiang.

The Antarctic polar tourism market has witnessed clear growth in recent years. A total of 3,367 Chinese tourists trekked to the Antarctic Pole in 2013-2014, says Yang Mengyue, a publicity official for HHtravel, a subsidiary of Ctrip, a big online travel agency in China. The agency itself took more than 40 people to the Antarctic this year, four times more than the previous year.

"Most of the tourists are private business owners, senior managers and investors, who usually bring their family members," says Yang.