Beijing tourism revenue up 15% during holiday

BEIJING -- Beijing reaped 3.88 billion yuan ($617.8 million) in tourism revenue during this year's seven-day Spring Festival holiday, up 15 percent year-on-year, local authorities said Friday.

China's capital city received 8.68 million tourists during the holiday period from February 9-15, up 7.5 percent year-on-year, according to a statement from the municipal tourism commission.

Nearly 13 percent of the tourists were not from Beijing, up 18.3 percent from the previous year. The commission partly attributed the rise to the free highway passage policy introduced during the holiday.

The Palace Museum received 300,000 tourists in the past seven days, it said.

Over the holiday, 1.02 million tourists visited the fair at the Temple of Earth, the largest of its kind in the city, marking a 9-percent increase from last year, it said.