As tens of millions of rural migrants flock to urban areas to make a living, city dwellers are swarming picturesque villages to get away from it all for their holidays.

The National Tourism Administration (NTA) said 60 percent of urban tourists, or 107 million, chose rural tourist destinations during the weeklong May Day holiday which ended on Monday. There is no comparative figure for last year.

Rural residents have risen to the challenge by arranging walks or hikes around scenic spots, encouraging ecological tourism and displaying local culture and traditions.

As many as 350,000 buses commuted between rural and urban areas during the holiday to ferry tourists.

In Laoshan District of Qingdao of east China's Shandong Province, the 252 rural households made a total income of 880,000 yuan (US$114,338) in the seven days.

Revenue in the countryside areas of Sichuan, Guizhou, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, where rural tourism is more developed, was nearly 10,000 yuan (US$1,299) per household.

"Rural tourism helps poverty alleviation, especially in backward provinces with a large number of ethnic minorities and rich ethnic culture," NTA Vice-Director Zhang Xiqin said.

NTA figures show that a total of 179 million residents hit the road during the holiday, generating revenue of 73.6 billion yuan (US$9.56 billion), up 22.7 percent and 25.7 percent from a year ago.

The May Day holidays are one of China's three Golden Week holidays in the year, which also include the Spring Festival and the National Day holidays.

The holidays were started by the central government in 1999 to boost domestic demand, stimulate consumption and restructure the economy. Among other findings by the NTA on this year's May Day holiday:

The number of tourists staying in hotels reached 45.86 million, up 18.1 percent from a year ago.

Over 133 million travelers made day trips, up 24.4 percent.

Airline revenues hit 3.2 billion yuan (US$416 million), up 31.7 percent; and the railways earned 1.49 billion yuan (US$194 million) in revenue from passenger transport, a 12 percent increase.

The 39 major tourist cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Wuxi, Shanghai, Sanya and Chengdu, played host to 62.14 million tourists during the seven days.

A total of 119 famous scenic spots across China received over 22.31 million visitors, collecting 910 million yuan (US$118 million) from ticket sales.

The number of outbound travelers continued to increase, especially to destinations such as Hong Kong and Macao, and some countries in Southeast Asia and Europe.

(China Daily May 9, 2007)