Local residents perform a dragon dance on one of the ancient streets in Pingyao. [Photo by Liang Shengren for China Daily]

The North China province of Shanxi welcomed a large number of tourists during the seven-day Spring Festival, demonstrating a strong recovery of the local tourism industry after three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according a tourism operator.

Shanxi Cultural and Tourism Group, one of the leading tourism operators in the province, said all of the cultural tourism projects it runs received more than 150,000 visits during the holiday. As a result, its tourism revenue surpassed 15 million yuan ($2.22 million).

In the ancient city of Pingyao, an interactive show titled Seeing Pingyao Again, which is produced by the SCTG, proved to be a draw for tourists. The show includes ancient Chinese costume parades, traditional weddings and stories about the famed Shanxi merchants. It is on the must-see list among tourists who want to have a better understanding of the city's history, according to an SCTG executive in charge of the show.

He said it, together with a related show, had received 27,300 customers, garnering a business revenue of nearly 5 million yuan during the Spring Festival holiday. "The audience and revenue numbers are roughly 80.5 percent that of the Spring Festival holiday before the pandemic," he added.

The Grand Courtyard of the Qiao Family, a major SCTG-operated tourist destination in Qixian county, received 14,486 tourists on Jan 26 alone.

Wang Zaipan, an SCTG executive in charge of the destination, said the number is a "big surprise", as it marked a sharp contrast to previous days.

"We were a little bit worried when we received only 428 visits on Jan 21, the Lunar New Year Eve," Wang said. "But the skyrocketing increase in the following days makes us believe we can have a fast recovery this year."

He said the number of tourists to the destination during this Spring Festival holiday is expected to grow by about 520 percent from the same period of 2022, close to the level of 2019.

The SCTG also announced that the hotels it operates received more than 23,700 guests during the holiday. Their combined business revenue amounted to 3.68 million yuan, growing 63.5 percent from the Spring Festival of 2022.

Zhang Ting contributed to this story.