BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Tourism was bouyant for the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with excursions to suburban areas being the most popular choice for Chinese travelers, said the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).
On Monday, the second day of the three-day holiday, 35.8 million trips were made by tourists, and the domestic tourism sector raked in a combined business revenue of 14.7 billion yuan (about 2.1 billion U.S. dollars), the CNTA said Monday in a statement.
Short trips were the most popular, while the traffic on most expressways nationwide was good except for some segments in Beijing and Shanghai, it added.
In Beijing alone, 1.6 million travelers visited 177 tourist attractions monitored by tourism authorities on Monday, rising 3.4 percent year on year, it said.
About 80 million people were expected to travel over the holiday, and the domestic tourism sector could earn 33 billion yuan in business income, the CNTA predicted last week in a report.
The cities of Xi'an, Chengdu, Suzhou and Guilin are the top destinations for domestic trips, with 44.1 percent of surveyed Chinese to choose excursions to suburban areas during the holiday, according to the report.
The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of a year according to the Chinese calendar, which falls on May 30 this year. Traditions of the festival include racing dragon boats and eating Zongzi, glutinous rice and fillings wrapped with bamboo or reed leaves.
