The 29th International Dinosaur Lantern Festival, which lit up on January 17, brightened the dark night in Zigong City, Sichuan Province in southwest China. As the city's calling card, the lantern spectacular attracted more than 300,000 visitors during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday from January 21 to 27. Ticket sales rose 77 percent year on year to 51.3 million yuan ($7.6 million).

The smallest prefecture-level city in all of Sichuan, Zigong is home to some of the world's oldest dinosaur fossils, a 1,000-year-old well salt culture, lantern craftsmanship and a myriad of local delicacies that cater to every foodie's tastes. The city welcomed a whopping 1.06 million tourists over the holiday period, which was also the first Spring Festival break following the easing of China's pandemic control policies, up 46.6 percent year on year.

The recovery of Zigong's tourism industry was perhaps the epitome of the nationwide lift in tourism seen during the holiday.

According to data released by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the 53.88-million tourist visits to the province made it the top-ranking holiday destination in the country, with tourism revenue reaching 24.22 billion yuan ($3.6 billion). These two figures recovered to 89.73 and 84.75 percent of the 2019 Spring Festival holiday numbers, respectively.

(Text and photos by Wei Yao)

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

Comments to dingying@cicgamericas.com