May Day holiday: Tourism revenue jumps 16% to $17.5b

Expo economy created new highlight for local consumption, Zhao Ping from the research department of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, told China News Service's official WeChat account WednesdayNews.

In Beijing, the just-opened Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition became an important tourist attraction and consumption spotlight; while in Guangzhou, the Southern China International Auto show drove the auto consumption, Zhao added.

Around 341,300 tourists visited Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition during the four-day May Day holiday, the organizer said Sunday. On May 2 and 3, the number of tourists surpassed 100,000.

During the holiday, 60 major monitored retailers and catering businesses achieved sales of 3.22 billion yuan in Beijing, up 6.5 percent year-on-year. In Shanghai, more than 300 retailers and catering businesses raked in 4.69 billion yuan in sales from May 1-4, an increase of 15.5 percent year-on-year.

China's box office reaped 1.5 billion yuan, according to China Movie Data Information Network. Over the past three years, the ticket sales during the May Day holiday were 658 million yuan, 775 million yuan and 999 million yuan in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Holiday tourism also boosted travel-related markets, with the sales volume of travel insurance jumping 14.4 percent from a year earlier, data from China's leading retailer Suning showed.

Data from Suning also showed a boom in food consumption during the holiday. Sales volume of beer saw the highest growth of 716 percent year-on-year, followed by 433 percent in snacks and 246 percent in crawfish.