China's tourism sector showed encouraging signs of recovery over the May Day holiday with 115 million trips made, many by car and by younger people emerging from weeks of coronavirus lockdown, according to government data and operators.

The five-day holiday from May 1 was an important test for the tourism industry, one of the sectors hardest hit by the coronavirus, which emerged in central China late last year and triggered shutdowns of up to three months to rein it in.

The total of 115 million trips over the holiday was down 41 percent from the 195 million over the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

But the figure beat expectations of about 90 million trips and was a hopeful sign, travel operators and authorities said.

"We can see that everyone's confidence is gradually recovering," Liang Jianzhang, chairman of travel operator Trip.com, told CCTV.

China has tried to encourage domestic tourism in a bid to revive an economy seriously battered by the coronavirus.

The ministry said travel operators earned total revenue of 47.56 billion yuan (6.74 billion U.S. dollars) over the holiday. It did not give a figure for last year.

Tourists traveling by car accounted for more than 60 percent of the travel during the holiday, the ministry said. Trip.com said bookings for its car rentals were 10 percent up on the same period last year.

More than half of bookings for Trip.com's holiday packages were made by travelers born in 1990 or later, known as China's post-90s and post-00s generations, the company said, with scenic spots such as Jiuzhaigou National Park as well as the cities Chengdu and Shanghai among top picks.

Overall, Trip.com said it saw bookings made on April 29 for air, rail and car transport for the holiday were 130 percent higher than all of the bookings for the week of April 24-29.

The number of people traveling outside their cities surged by nearly 50 percent at the beginning of the holiday compared with the Qingming Festival on April 4, according to Reuters calculations based on the data from China's internet giant Baidu.

Most tourist attractions have been reopened, though attendance is limited to 30 percent of the capacity to reduce the risk of coronavirus infections.