Spring Festival holiday boosts tourism
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Xinhua, January 24, 2012
With fast increases in personal wealth and a growing middle class, more Chinese have chosen to spend the ongoing Spring Festival holiday making tours with families.
About 1.33 million tourists visited major scenic spots in Beijing, with the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City, seeing visitors up 18.55 percent year-on-year to hit 48,500 on Tuesday, the third day of the week-long holiday, data from the National Holiday Tourism Office showed.
Meanwhile, the northern municipality of Tianjin on Tuesday received 5,400 travellers by plane, who mainly came from domestic provinces and cities such as Shanghai and Zhejiang, as well as the United States and Canada.
Chengdu, capital city of southwestern Sichuan Province, also reported surging tourists during the day. Visitors to the city's Daci Temple were nine times more than last year's to reach 90,000, while 105,000 tourists visited its Baoguang Temple, an increase of 98.86 percent.
More residents made self-driving tours in the country's southwestern Yunnan Province. On Tuesday, more than 55,600 private cars entered the Xishuangbanna prefecture for the purpose of sightseeing.
Thanks to its tropical beaches and lush forests, the country's southernmost Hainan province is always one of the most popular choices for Chinese travellers.
Driven by the increasing number of travelers, the price of Hainan tours doubled during the week-long holiday, said Yang Jiezhen, manager of the Overseas International Travel Service Co.
The Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the world's third tallest TV and ratio tower, received 22,000 visitors on Monday, representing a year-on-year increase of 16 percent.
Hangzhou in east China was another hot tourist destination. Its Lingyin Temple, one of the most famous Buddhist temples in China, received 58,200 tourists on Monday, up 38.9 percent year-on-year, and generated 1.31 million yuan (208,253 U.S. dollars) in revenue, up 36.1 percent from one year earlier, official data showed.
