(Yicai) June 11 -- Chinese tourists spent CNY40.4 billion (USD5.6 billion) in the country during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, an 8.1 percent increase from a year earlier, according to official data.

The number of domestic trips rose 6.3 percent to 110 million over the three-day annual break that ended yesterday, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed.

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Duanwu Festival, is a traditional Chinese holiday held on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. During this public holiday, people customarily race dragon boats and eat sticky rice dumplings called zongzi in celebration.

Popular destinations in China over this year’s Dragon Boat Festival holiday held special events and took steps to bolster consumption, including through new-type consumption scenarios.

Shaanxi province held over 600 cultural and tourism-related events, offered discounted tickets and hotel rooms, as well as special fusion cuisine.

Shanghai hosted 200 activities, including visits to museums, art galleries, and theaters, while Fujian province organized more than 640 local cultural events and put in place over 140 measures to boost consumption.

Other provinces such as Guangdong, Hunan, Zhejiang, Guizhou, and Yunnan staged dragon boat races. Wuhan in Hubei province had a series of cultural and tourism events planned around the theme of Roaming Wuhan.

In central Henan province, tourists could experience traditional Chinese culture by attending exhibitions and performances of intangible cultural heritage linked to the Dragon Boat Festival.

Provincial-level regions such as Yunnan, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Guizhou were hot picks for young roadtrippers wanting to escape the summer hear. The hit television series To the Wonder put the Altay and Nilka areas of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on the map for these adventurers.

Air fare and hotel packages for Universal Beijing Resort and Shanghai Disney Resort also proved popular for the Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

Editor: Futura Costaglione