Two foreign tourists take a picture at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.[Photo by Zou Weilin/China Daily]

The Japanese like urban scenic spots, so their footprints can be found almost all across the mainland, while Europeans embrace cultural elements, which takes them to places like Leshan in Sichuan and Xi'an in Shaanxi province for ancient historical heritage, adds Liu.

Approximately 128 million tourists from outside the mainland flocked to such attractions last year, including 26 million foreign tourists. However, the bulk of the visitors were mainly from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Inbound tourism saw 7-percent growth in the first 10 months as compared with the same period last year, says Liu, adding that the number of such tourists is expected to hit 130 million this year, thanks to the increasing number of tourists from Japan and South Korea.

The number of South Korean tourists to the mainland has surged 48 percent year-on-year so far this year.

Beijing alone drew in more than 300,000 visitors from the country in the first nine months. ROK is the top country when it comes to inbound tourist numbers visiting Beijing, followed by Japan, bringing in 190,000 tourists to the municipality. Last year, more than 828,000 Japanese tourists visited Shanghai, accounting for 10 percent of all inbound tourists to the mainland, Liu says.

Cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an, remain the all-time favorites among foreign tourists, says Yu Liangbing, vice-general manager with the Beijing-based China Youth Travel Service Co.

But areas with splendid landscape scenery are luring more visitors thanks to word of mouth and the impact of the movies. He partly attributes the popularity of Zhangjiajie to the film Avatar, which had some scenes shot there, and adds that Yichang is popular due to the Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River.

The route from the upper reaches of the Yangtze, starting from Chengdu or Chongqing across Jiangxi and Hubei provinces to Shanghai is one of the most popular among inbound tourists.

Silk Road-themed trips featuring Xi'an and going all the way to Dun-huang in Gansu province, or journeys tracking the Grand Canal from Beijing across Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Shanghai are also gaining ground, Yu says.