A rural scenic spot in Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/hz66.com]

Huzhou's tourism industry logged a strong recovery during the five-day May Day holiday, local authorities said.

The city's A-level scenic spots, hotels, rural scenic attractions and cultural venues had recorded more than 4.24 million tourist visits as of 2:00 pm on May 3, the last day of the holiday, official statistics show.

The figure represented a whopping uptick of 187.32 percent from the previous May Day holiday and an increase of 20.97 percent compared with the same break in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak.

More than 2 million visitors, or nearly a half of the total visitors to Huzhou amid the holiday, stayed overnight in the city, resulting in a boom in the local accommodation sector.

Visits to the countryside grew significantly as well with the roll-out of a myriad of tourism activities such as fruit picking, barbecuing and study tours during the holiday.

The five-day period also saw robust growth in consumption. The sales of 46 monitored businesses, including shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants, in the city amounted to 210 million yuan ($30.41 million), an uptick of 31 percent year-on-year.