Dozens of Chinese tourists boarded an Emirates Airlines flight at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to go sightseeing on Monday morning.

The flight took off a little after midnight and carried the passengers to the United Arab Emirates, where they will tour Dubai and Abu Dhabi for six days before traveling to Egypt for another 10 days.

It was the first group of domestic tourists to travel across the border in three years, marking the official restart of China's outbound group travel business.

According to Zhao Wenzhi, president of the GZL International Travel Service, more than 500 domestic tourists organized by his company were to go across the border to foreign destinations on Monday. They ranged in age from 24 to 80, with 80 percent being retirees. Of those, 150 were participating in group tours, he said.

In addition to the UAE and Egypt, Thailand and Cambodia were destinations for domestic tourists on Monday.