The Haiyu Plaza in Pingtan, Southeast China's Fujian province receives a large number of tourists during the Spring Festival holiday of Feb 7-13. [Photo/ptnet.cn]

The tourism market of Pingtan in Southeast China's Fujian province thrived during the just passed Spring Festival holiday, according to local tourism development bureau on Feb 13.

Nearly 36,000 tourists visited the county during the week-long holiday between Feb 7 and 13, an increase of 36.95 percent compared with last year.

Tourism income was 83.91 percent higher than the same period of the previous year, at 11.9 million yuan ($1.8 million).

Traditional tourist sites, featuring beautiful natural landscapes and unique coastal landforms remained the hot spots for tourists, said local tourism officials.

The sites included Haiyu Plaza, Longfengtou Beach, the Deity's Well, a sea erosion landform, Shipaiyang, a reef which is a combination of tablet-shaped rocks, the General's Mountain and Dafu Bay.

New scenic spots such as the Haitan Ancient City and the Pingtan-Taiwan Duty-free Commodity Market organized various activities to increase their influence among tourists.

Haitan Ancient City, a large tourism complex featuring antique buildings launched a folk culture tourism festival. The festival included folk arts performances, local delicacy display and lantern riddle guessing among others.

Rated as a 3A national scenic spots last December, the Pingtan-Taiwan Duty-free Commodity Market held its first tourism and culture festival during the holiday, which attracted large number of visitors.