Update | Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau top picks for mainland Chinese tourists

Mainland China may have the world's largest outbound tourism market but most of the tourists are going only to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

Last year, the number of outbound trips made by mainland Chinese crossed the 100 million mark for the first time to reach 109 million, according to the National Tourism Administration. But 70 per cent of the trips were to these three destinations.

Taiwan accounted for 3.98 million trips, according to visitor numbers recorded by Taiwan's tourism bureau.

Both by traveller numbers and spending, mainland China has been the world's largest outbound tourism market since 2012, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

It says the 2013 outbound travel penetration of the mainland Chinese population was just 7.6 per cent, and 59 per cent of those travelling abroad were doing it for the first time.

The low base creates tremendous potential as tourist numbers are expected to see rapid growth in coming years with the increase of disposable income among the country's middle class, which is as big as the United States population.

Most mainland Chinese travellers do not travel beyond Asia, which accounted for up to 89.5 per cent of the 109 million trips.