Boom in tourism bodes well for further growth in year ahead

Travel demand across China recovered significantly during this year's seven-day Spring Festival holiday following the implementation of various promotional campaigns and the introduction of preferential policies, according to statistics released by local tourism authorities.

The number of tourists in some provinces from Jan 21 to 27 including Yunnan, Zhejiang and Jiangsu surpassed that of 2019, the year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the statistics.

Zhejiang received 25.3 million visits during this year's Spring Festival, a year-on-year increase of 43 percent, according to the 2023 Spring Festival Holiday Tourism Situation Analysis Report released on Saturday by the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.

The province's tourism revenue reached 32.9 billion yuan ($4.88 billion), a year-on-year increase of 36.1 percent. The average per capita spending of tourists during the weeklong holiday was over 1,300 yuan, the report said.

More than 400 scenic spots in the province offered free admission to visitors, and more than 500 million yuan in vouchers for stimulating consumption were issued.

More than 8.4 million tourists were received in all 258 important scenic spots across Zhejiang, almost three and a half times the same period in 2022 and an increase of nearly 77 percent over the same period in 2019, the report said.

A rebound in tourism during the weeklong holiday has been observed in many regions across a range of activities. For example, ice and snow leisure activities in Shandong province proved popular.

"There were so many people playing on the ski slopes. My two kids had a great time playing the ice and snow sports," said Xu Jie, a Jinan local who took his kids skiing.

In addition, Taishan Mountain, an internationally renowned scenic spot in the province, welcomed 302,500 tourist arrivals during the festival, hitting a record high for the period in the past decade, according to statistics from the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.

It added that during the weeklong holiday, the province's 14 5A-rated scenic spots, China's highest-ranking tourist attractions, received 3.51 million visitors, up 90.6 percent year-on-year.

The boom in tourism is believed by many to bode well for steady growth in the year ahead.

People's desire for travel was unleashed after China optimized COVID-19 response measures, which laid a foundation for the high-level and steady growth and recovery of the tourism economy throughout the year, Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.

A total of 308 million domestic trips were made across China during the holiday, a year-on-year growth of 23.1 percent. These trips generated total revenue of 375 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 30 percent, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.