Tourism thrives in Beijing during Spring Festival holiday

BEIJING -- The Chinese capital Beijing became a tourist magnet during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, recording over 6.63 million visits made by tourists as the holiday ended Wednesday.

Among the total visits, which rose by 3.5 times over the same period of last year, more than 1.72 million visits were made by tourists from other parts of the country, contributing 2.67 billion yuan to the city's tourist revenue, up 1.8 times year on year.

Data from the municipal bureau of culture and tourism showed that during the holiday from Feb 11 to Feb 17, th

e city's tourist revenue amounted to 4.25 billion yuan (about $658 million), up 2.9 times year on year.

Beijing's downtown shopping streets of Wangfujing and Qianmen are among the most visited tourist spots during the holiday, posting 895,000 and 624,000 tourist arrivals, respectively.