China's tourism industry is picking up as schools let out for summer break. Most provinces allow inter-provincial travel and many tourist destinations are eager to open amid loosening COVID-19 restrictions.

Dixan Perez from Cuba is an actor who works for Discoveryland, an amusement park in Dalian City, northeast China's Liaoning Province. For people like him who work in the tourism sector, the past two years have been difficult. Every time a COVID-19 outbreak occurred, the park was among the first batch of businesses that had to shut down. But with the pandemic easing in the northeast, his schedule is again packed. "Finally, we can have a summer like three years ago, with many shows, much fun, many tourists," said Dixan.

The city's tourism sector has adapted to COVID-19 containment measures. Theme park tours, short-distance travel and family road trips have become popular. Experts predict that the ratio of booking cross-provincial hotels will increase to more than 50 percent across the country.

Many visitors in Discoveryland are from nearby cities or provinces. The desire to go out is signaling a turning point in China's tourism sector, with hopes that the school holidays will help the industry rebound more quickly.

"Thanks to the series of favorable central government policies carried out to help the tourism sector recover, our ticket sales have recovered to 2019 levels. For this summer, we've launched several interactive attractions, and our park is confident of a smooth recovery," Liu Fei, general manager of Discoveryland, told CGTN.

Faced with the desire to travel and the pandemic-related obstacles that surround it, people are making travel choices more carefully. A local tourism company says visitors these days have much higher expectations from hospitality service providers.

"There were very few tourism products in Jinshitan beach line before, but this doesn't mean visitors didn't have the need for fun activities. This year, we've set up a partnership with a tourism company from Hainan Province and borrowed some of their ideas. Together we want to make this place a tourist hot spot suitable for all seasons and people of all ages," said Wang Lu, deputy manager of Dalian Jinshitan Tourism Group.

While the revival of domestic travel is helping the tourism industry recover, experts say the industry must focus more on people than destinations to keep pace with changing travel expectations.