China's tourism industry rang in the New Year with a welcome return of travelers taking advantage of easing COVID-19 response measures to enjoy the three-day mid-winter holiday.

Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province received more than 1.23 million visitors over the New Year’s weekend, raking in 822 million yuan (about 120 million U.S. dollars) in tourism revenue.

A dazzling firework show lit up the Window of the World Shenzhen theme park, which features 130 replicas of famous tourist sites from around the world, pulling in crowds on a scale not seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Nearly 70,000 tourists visited our park in three days, an increase of 30 percent from last year. The nighttime visitors increased by more than 150 percent compared to the same period last year." said Tang Wancai, deputy manager of the park's marketing department.

Tourism industry analysts say the return of travelers in large numbers over the year-end holiday points to a promising year ahead, with Chinese New Year just around the corner.

"Shenzhen's tour package reservations grew rapidly during the New Year holiday. With the epidemic becoming stable and stronger consumer confidence, the tourism market will definitely see a strong recovery in the future based on the New Year's holiday data and the future border reopening." said Liang Xiaolong, deputy general manager of an online travel platform in Shenzhen.

The Confucius Temple in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, was among the tourist sites that saw strong growth in tourist numbers during the holiday.

Night time activities have become more popular in Nanjing, especially with young tourists, and close to three times as many people were out shopping and dining on Saturday night than during the day.

"There has been a steady foot traffic today and yesterday. Restaurants like the Nanjing Impressions and the Pizza Hut behind us had a very high turnover yesterday. Demand has exploded as many people are recovering [from COVID-19]," said Zhang Min, chairman of Jiangsu Nanjing Tourism Company.

Airlines and travel booking platforms also say they are seeing a big surge in flight searches for popular Chinese tourist destinations including Shanghai, Kunming, Sanya and Beijing, after the government announced plans to further ease COVID-19 control measures.

From next week, China will downgrade its management of COVID-19 from a Class A to a Class B infectious disease -- shifting the focus of the response from stemming infection to caring for infected patients and preventing severe cases.