Tourists' destination choice behavior is an important research topic in tourism research. Many studies have investigated the factors that influence tourists' destination choice behaviors. Those factors include travel motivation， tourists' personality， destination image and so on， leaving cultural distance rarely studied. Literature review shows that there are two contradictory viewpoints about the relationship between cultural distance and destination choice behaviors. The first is that the greater the cultural distance between the origin and the destination， the more people travel to the destination， while the second view is just the opposite. Both opinions are somewhat reasonable. Specifically， according to travel motivation theory， destinations with greater cultural distance better satisfy tourists' basic travel motives， namely novelty seeking and escape. In this way， the number of tourist arrival increases. On the other hand， travel risk theory proposes that tourists' perception of travel risk would increase as cultural distance increases， inhibiting tourists' visits to destinations. According to two-factor destination choice theory and optimal stimuli theory， facilitating and inhibiting forces interact to influence tourists' destination choice. It is inferred that cultural distance and tourists' destination choice have a non-linear relationship． This study utilizes the Chinese inbound tourism statistics， which covers 75 tourist source countries from year 1995 to 2012. By establishing econometric models， it is empirically verified that cultural distance and international tourism destination choice have an inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship. From this can be inferred the cultural distance where the number of inbound tourists to China reaches its maximum， namely an optimal cultural distance， the numerical value of which being 3.606. Specifically， when cultural distance is short， the facilitating force of travel motivation exceeds the inhibiting force of travel risk. The number of tourist arrivals will increase with the increase of cultural distance. However， when cultural distance increases to 3.606， the inhibiting force of travel risk o the facilitating force of travel motivation. The number of tourist arrival will decrease with the increase of cultural distance. It is of great theoretical value to discuss the influence of cultural distance on tourists' destination choice. On one hand， previous studies were limited to the impact of the origin culture or destination culture. The introduction of cultural distance improves the explanatory power of tourists' destination choice behavior， since the concept of cultural distance incorporates the cultural difference between the origin and the destination. On the other hand， this empirical study has verified the non-linear relationship between cultural distance and tourists' destination choice， providing a solution of the existing conflicting conclusions. In terms of practical significance， studies of the relationship between cultural distance and tourists' destination choice is useful for the destination marketing organizations in their application of effective marketing strategies. First， it helps identify China's target countries of tourist source. They are those countries with a cultural distance to China of around 3.606， namely New Zealand， Belgium， Lithuania， Greece， Portugal， etc. To attract people from countries with a cultural distance to China of lower than 3.606， it is important to emphasize China's difference from them. Otherwise， it is important to show China's similarity with them．