(Yicai Global) June 10 -- Revenue from domestic tourism during China's Dragon Boat Festival tallied CNY39.3 billion (USD5.7 billion) this year, up 8.6 percent from 2018.

Some 96 million travelers went away for the three-day weekend, a 7.7 percent climb from the previous year, according to Ministry of Culture and Tourism data published today. The rise came despite the holiday's clash with China's national college entrance exams -- known as the gaokao.

Visitors to Beijing's 167 tourist destinations jumped 12.1 percent and boosted revenue by 26.9 percent, the data showed, while traveler numbers to the Yellow Mountain in Anhui province slumped 35.5 percent, causing income from ticket to almost halve.

Dragon Boat Festival -- or Duan Wu Jie in Chinese -- is a cultural holiday that celebrate the fifth day of the fifth month in China's lunisolar calendar. Common ways to mark the occasion include eating rice dumplings known as zongzi and to race dragon boats.

Editor: James Boynton