(Yicai) Nov. 26 -- Shanghai restaurants have seen a significant improvement in business after the local government began distributing vouchers to residents to encourage them to dine out.

Around 70 percent of customers in the seven Shanghai restaurants of Japanese cuisine chain Wando have used relevant consumption vouchers when paying for their meals since the city began distributing the coupons at the end of September, the chain's supervisor Wang Jie said to Yicai.

With the support of the consumption vouchers, Wando's revenue has surged about 35 percent over the past two months from a year earlier, Wang noted.

"October and November are usually the off-season for our restaurants," Wang noted. "Unexpectedly, there are still queues, and judging from the state of the catering market this year, it would have been quite difficult to maintain operating income without a decline during this period."

Some customers told Yicai they had tried to make reservations at Wando after receiving the vouchers and waited two weeks for a table.

The performance of Yongfu Xiaoxian restaurants also beat expectations and rose about 30 percent last month from a year ago, Shi Hao, a manager of the Ningbo cuisine chain, said to Yicai. The consumption vouchers boosted customer flow and total consumption, Shi added.

With the surge in customer flow and per capita consumption, the business confidence of local catering companies has been significantly improved, said Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce. The city will review the experience in distributing previous batches of consumption vouchers, continuing to expand the merchant coverage and optimizing distribution plans, Liu added.

Shanghai started distributing the second batch of consumption vouchers for dining at restaurants early this month, with the lowest value being a discount of 90 Chinese yuan when spending reaches 300 yuan and the highest being 300 yuan when spending tops 1,000 yuan.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev