Tourists either strolled in a leisurely manner on wooden trestles in Yan’erdao Mountain Park, or took a speedboat on Xiaomai Island to enjoy themselves to their heart’s content, either watched splendid flash mob events in the historical urban area or got themselves immersed in cultural charm and elegance in the municipal museum, either were fascinated by drama games or relished picking vegetables or fruits in rural fields or gardens. In the just-concluded May 1st holiday, Qingdao led the way among China’s popular tourist sites, ranked among the top 10 China’s destinations for foreign tourists, and emerged as the most preferred destination in the eyes of innumerable tourists.

“Qingdao is a very beautiful coastal city. I chose to take speedboat to view Qingdao from the sea. It was so exciting.” In the holiday, Mr. Ge, a tourist from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, took his family to visit Laoshan Mountain and Xiaomai Island. Statistics show that the Qingdao marine tourism consortium in the five-day-long holiday welcomed a total of 172,700 tourists. In addition, the underwater fishing festival launched for the first time in the Qingdao Underwater World and a concert held amid sea breezes in the Qingdao Polar Ocean Park were so appealing that a great many tourists showed up. A tourist route around Xiaoguan Island, reputed as “a paradise in the sea”, was launched in the May 1st holiday, helping creating a brighter prospect for marine cultural tourism in Qingdao.

In the holiday, citizens and tourists swarmed to rural revitalization areas to go hiking, study intangible cultural heritage, experience wellness amid mountain and sea views and explore folk culture. Qingdao’s rural revitalization areas at different levels received 951,000 tourists in the holiday.  (Ma Xiaoting)

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Foreign tourist take part in beachcombing in the Qingdao “clam festival”.