During the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, North China's Shanxi province witnessed an upsurge in foreign tourists thanks to tourism offerings exploring its traditional folk customs, according to data released by Ctrip, an online ticketing service company, on June 10.

The Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese festival, is attracting more and more foreign tourists. According to Ctrip, as of June 9, the number of inbound tourists during the three-day holiday in Shanxi increased by 142 percent year-on-year, while the number of inbound tourists in Taiyuan increased by 88 percent year-on-year.

The data shows that during the three-day holiday, the majority of foreign tourists came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, and Malaysia. At the same time, Ctrip received many requests for charter services from overseas Chinese tourists to worship ancestors and experience intangible cultural heritage.

During the holiday, many regions in Shanxi launched a variety of folk leisure activities, with cultural and Chinese-style tourism becoming new drivers of tourism growth. For example, on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, tourists had the chance to experience the traditional festival customs such as wrapping zongzi, tasting rice wine, and wearing colorful threads at the Taishan Temple Square in the ancient city of Xinzhou.