Rich Chinese who are sick of crowds at home during major holidays have discovered the Maldives, the tropical islands that typically draw jet-setters from Europe looking for an exotic locale.

The Maldives has become the most desired destination for the Chinese, according to a report from China's Tourism Bureau. Chinese tourists now dominate travel to the island country, with 103,734 arrivals in the first seven months of 2013, up 66% from the same period in 2011, according to its Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture. Chinese visitor numbers dwarf those from the U.K. and Italy, which are in second and third place with 60,021 and 53,493 tourists, respectively.

During the recent Golden Week holiday, Zhu Hong, a partner in fashion boutique Shanghai Tang, joined with a group of eight business acquaintances for a private-jet trip to the Indian Ocean islands. The luxury-goods executive is now on his seventh passport after running out of pages on the previous six. Most of his friends, who are Shanghai property developers, haven't spent as much time abroad, so they were eager to tag along with a well-traveled English speaker.

Unlike many Chinese who often travel with business associates, Mr. Zhu normally prefers to spend holidays with his family, but made an exception because his son was training for a tennis tournament.

They stayed in villas on the water in the Maldives, but hardly dipped their toes in the water. They spent most of their time playing a popular Chinese card game called fighting the landlord. 'Although I wished they have spent a bit more time on the beach, they really saw this game as an engaging intellectual challenge,' Mr. Zhu said.

Well-off Chinese who are tired of beaches in Southeast Asia are looking for a new destination. For Chinese passport holders, the Maldives is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't require the hassle of a visa. Its white sand and lush green water couldn't be more different than the travel scene in China during Golden Week, one of two weeks during the year when nearly the whole country is on holiday.

The islands, which are an eight-hour flight from Beijing, have roughly 350,000 people spread over 90,000 square kilometers on about 200 inhabited islands. The country, among the lowest-lying in the world, is considered one of the most at risk from rising sea levels believed caused by climate change.

While wealthy Chinese jetted to the Maldives, Beijing was shrouded in a blanket of polluted air and was packed with tourists. Crowds to major destinations such as the Summer Palace hit new records. Thousands of Chinese tourists were stranded for up to 10 hours at a famous beauty spot in Sichuan after some vacationers blocked buses because they couldn't get on board.

'What's remarkable is the spending power of the Chinese,' said Brett Tucker, a partner at Shanghai-based private-equity firm Baird Capital, who came back from the Maldives this week more convinced than ever about his 'China consumption' investment theme. Most of the people he saw there were from China, and they were spending. Rooms in the resorts favored by Chinese easily cost $750 to $1,000 a day, not cheap for anyone, he added.

While it is clear why Chinese would want to get away from home, it isn't clear what attracts them to the Maldives. Many Chinese don't particularly enjoy the sun and are just starting to experiment with water sports. Most Chinese tourists still aren't eager to explore foreign food