Photo/Shanghai Daily
Shanghai received 4.45 million tourists during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, up 10.9 percent from last year.
Local tourism authorities said a variety of festive activities and the dry weather had helped to raise numbers.
Among the major tourist attractions, Oriental Pearl TV Tower had more than 140,000 visitors, up 9 percent from last year's holiday, while Shanghai Science & Technology Museum welcomed 148,600 -- a rise of 19 percent, Shanghai Tourism Administration announced.
Shanghai Zoo, Jinmao Tower, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and Fengjing Water Town also enticed more visitors than last year, ranging from 8.9 to 49 percent.
However, Century Park, Shanghai Wildlife Park, Jinjiang Amusement Park and Shanghai Natural History Museum reported fewer visitors, a fall of up to 24 percent from last year, according to the administration.
It did not reveal figures for Shanghai Disney Resort. The resort stopped issuing tickets on site for several days because of high attendances.
The city recorded a tourism revenue of 4.87 billion yuan ($711 million) during the holiday, a rise of 20.4 percent.
The average daily per capita spending by tourists staying overnight in Shanghai during the holiday was 1,025 yuan, up 10 percent from last year, according to the administration.
It said that travel agencies in the city had handled about 86,800 outbound tourists during the holiday, up 10.1 percent.
A total of 1.69 and 1.61 million people arrived and departed from Shanghai via the railway during the holiday, up 25 percent and 8 percent respectively.
Shanghai port reported 710,000 inbound and outbound passengers during the holiday, the entry-exit frontier inspection station said.
The United States and Southeast Asia were popular destinations, and cruise tours to Japan and South Korea were also in demand.
In total, 420 malls and shops in the city witnessed a 10.6 percent rise of turnover compared with last year's holiday, according to Shanghai Commission of Commerce.
Wuzhen and Zhouzhuang, two water towns in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, and Lingshan Buddha scenic spot in Wuxi, Jiangsu, were the top three short distance destinations during the holiday, said Shanghai Sightseeing Bus Center, which recorded 25,262 tourists over the holiday.
Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau said 11,794 tons of garbage were removed from streets during the holiday. This included 17.5 tons of fireworks -- a drop of 72 percent from last year's holiday.
Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau received 853 complaints during the holiday, up 10 percent from last year.
About a third of the complaints concerned tourism, catering, accommodation and transportation.
The bureau cited as one example a tourist who had booked a two-day trip to Suzhou and Nanjing and complained that the travel agency did not include meals as promised, cut the number of scenic spots and charged extra fees.
The number of complaints over entertainment and sports also surged, ranging from advertisements before each song on KTV to being forced into buying 3D spectacles at a cinema.
Delays of goods deliveries with online shopping and restaurants being closed despite would-be diners paying a deposit for nianyefan (New Year's Eve dinner) also drew complaints.
