With the expanding trade deficit of Chinese tourism services, more attention is being paid to strengthening the transnational/cross-border business of Chinese tourism enterprises to reduce the negative impacts. Based on a brief analysis and sorting of the development status of the Chinese outbound travel market and tourism transnational/cross-border operations, the paper argues that the transnational/cross-border operation of Chinese tourism enterprises is far from keeping up with the rise of Chinese outbound travel. There is a problem in finding good locations to promote Chinese tourism transnational/cross-border operations and in developing them rapidly and healthily. On the basis of relevant research about the influencing factors when selecting the best locations for servince studies on selecting transnational/cross-border operation locations and few studies on selecting tourism transnational/cross-border business locations. Additionally, the study of transnational/cross-border business service is still mainly concentrated on producer services such as financing, advertising and consulting. Considering the importance and urgency of selecting transnational/cross-border operation locations for Chinese tourism enterprises, the paper analyzes the main potential locations according to market scale and tourism economy competitiveness through integrating Chinese outbound tourism destination distribution data between the years 2008 ~ 2010 from the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the tourism competitiveness data of 2011 from the World Economic Forum. It notes that Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and France are the preferred locations for tourism enterprise transnational/cross-border investment. Entering into the mature stage of development, tourism enterprise transnational/cross-border operations should carefully consider the overall size of the inbound, outbound and domestic tourism market of the host country and not entirely depend on tourists from the home country. Analyzing tourism GDP data from World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) from the period 2006 ~ 2011 and tourism competitiveness data from the World Economic Forum in 2011, the paper argues that the United States, Japan, France and Germany are the preferred locations of travel agency transnational/cross-border investment and the first three countries are the preferred locations of hotel transnational/cross-border investment. Using the latest data of the Hofstede cultural distance report, and purchasing power parity data of GDP between 2002 ~ 2011 from the WTTC and the relevant countries and regions, the paper constructs a foreign direct investment gravity model for tourism, calculating the tourism investment gravity coefficient and the host country investment gravity coefficient of the main potential locations, and analyzing the transnational/cross-border investment potential of Chinese tourism enterprises in the main potential locations. It concludes that Hong Kong, the United States, India and Taiwan are the preferred locations of tourism enterprise transnational/cross-border investment. According to the data of host country investment gravity coefficiency, tourism investment gravity and host country tourism competitiveness, the research undertook K cluster analysis and found that in addition to Hong Kong, the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are the preferred locations of Chinese tourism enterprise transnational/cross-border operations. With the SPSS scatter diagram and the K cluster analysis, the paper classifies the investment value of the potential investment locations, taking Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan as the locus areas of tourism enterprise transnational/cross-border investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]