Outbound travel to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao remains popular with mainland travelers during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday season, an online survey has showed.

About 11 percent of people polled in an online survey released by market research firm Nielsen during the weekend picked overseas travel destinations over domestic ones for the coming vacation, with the top three places for short-haul trips being Hong Kong (60 percent), Taiwan (29 per cent) and Macao (23 percent).

"In these challenging economic times, travelers on the mainland are looking for ways to save, including organizing trips themselves and planning short- to medium- haul trips," said Grace Pan, head of travel and leisure research at Nielsen's China operations.