West Lake receives over 500,000 tourists on Spring Festival

HANGZHOU -- The renowned West Lake in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou received a total of 508,400 tourists on the first day of the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which was Saturday, the city's tourism commission said on Sunday.

This is a year-on-year increase of about 20 percent, according to the commission.

Hangzhou, the host city for the 2016 G20 summit, received a total of about 1.25 million tourists on the same day, it said.

West Lake was used as the backdrop of a performance directed by Zhang Yimou as part of the G20 summit.