People in China travelled freely during the New Year's Day weekend and the Spring Festival holiday as the country has optimized its COVID-19 measures.

From December 31, 2022 to January 2, 2023, about 52.7 million domestic tourist trips were made, with the tourism revenue reaching 26.5 billion yuan ($3.8 billion), according to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on January 2.

As for the seven-day Spring Festival holiday from January 21 to 27, a total of 308 million domestic trips were made within China, up 23.1 percent from last year's Spring Festival break and 88.6 percent of the number in 2019, the ministry said on January 27.

As of January 29, tourism data of 21 provinces shows that southwest China's Sichuan Province took the first place in terms of the number of tourists received, reaching 53.9 million tourist trips and generating a tourism revenue of 24.2 billion yuan. 

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On the road: Revitalizing energy on Spring Festival travel market

(Data edited by Sun Yiwen; graphics designed by Mukesh Mohanan)