Holiday travel revives tourism in China's quake-hit Sichuan

Special Report: Spring Festival Special 2009

CHENGDU, Feb. 1 (Chinese media) -- Tourism in southwest China's quake-hit Sichuan

Province is showing signs of revival at the end of the week-long Lunar New Year

holiday.

The provincial tourism office on Sunday announced 16.5 million tourist

visits in the holiday, which ended Saturday, up 21.9 percent from the Spring

Festival week last year.

The Donghekou Earthquake Relics Park, established to commemorate last

year's May 12 earthquake, in Qingchuan County welcomed more than 64,300 domestic

and overseas tourists during the holiday.

The park contains the ruins of Donghekou Village, where all but 300 of more

than 1,400 villagers failed to survive a devastating landslide triggered by the

earthquake.

Earthquake tours in the county attracted more than 100,000 visitors in the

holiday, which helped revive small businesses, said a tourist office official.

Many tourists visited small restaurants set up by survivors in temporary

settlements in Beichuan County, one of the worst affected areas, and were drawn

to countryside tours to see farmhouses built after the earthquake.