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Chinese travel agencies reported booking some flights on the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that went missing on Saturday, shortly after contact was lost with the plane.

Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, said it had issued tickets to 19 people, including a child, for Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Some of the passengers had bought insurance, but the agency has not publicized the number.

Qunar.com, another leading online travel agency, confirmed four passengers used the site to book tickets for the flight. They include a 61-year-old man surnamed Dou, a 61-year-old woman surnamed Zhang and a 27-year-old woman surnamed Jiang. All three left Beijing for Kuala Lumpur half a month ago. A 30-year-old man also got a ticket from Qunar.

Of the four passengers, three bought insurance from Huatai Insurance Group. But both the insurer and the travel agency declined to disclose further details.

Malaysia kicked off its "Visit Malaysia Year 2014" program in January to promote the nation's tourism offerings through numerous events, festivals and activities.

The Malaysian government expects to welcome about 28 million tourists from around the world in 2014, and the number is expected to grow to 36 million in 2020.

Luxury travel packages on ocean liners are the key products catering to the Chinese market, Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board chair Ng Yen Yen said. She also said tourism officials are expanding their presence from first-tier cities into second-tier cities, such as Henan province’s capital Zhengzhou and Yunnan province’s capital Kunming.

Malaysia announced at the end of 2013 that Chinese tourists can apply for a visa upon arrival at four designated cities as long as they enter Malaysia via a third country. The regulation went into effect on Jan 1.

Tourism is one of Malaysia's pillar industries. The industry's total sales revenue amounted to 65.44 billion ringgit ($20.1 billion) in 2013, up 8.1 percent year-on-year and exceeding the earlier goal of 65 billion ringgit. The country received 25.7 million tourists last year, 700,000 more than in 2012.

Chinese tourists have contributed greatly to Malaysia's growing tourism industry.

The Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board said China was Malaysia's third-largest tourist market last year, behind Singapore and Indonesia. In 2013, 1.79 million people from China traveled to the Southeast Asian nation — a 14.9 percent year-on-year increase.

Malaysia benefited from the six new weekly direct AirAsia X flights from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur, and another seven weekly direct AirAsia X flights from Zhejiang province's Hangzhou to Kota Kinabalu.