Getting going again

Several other scenic spots in Anhui, including Xidi and Hongchun villages about 40 km from Huangshan Mountain, also reached capacity during the holiday and had to tell many travelers to reschedule.

Shanghai's Bund was packed with shoppers and visitors in early April after being vacant for weeks, and some restaurants required bookings.

Beijing has continued strict rules about leaving the city and 14-day quarantines for people entering from outside.

But residents have crowded open-air spaces, such as Chaoyang Park. The park recorded 30,000 visits on March 31 and had to limit numbers afterward.

About 43 million traveler visits were made in China during the three-day Tomb-Sweeping holiday, down 61 percent compared with last year, the China Tourism Academy reports.

Tourism income during the holiday stood at 8.26 billion yuan ($1.16 billion), an 80 percent decrease from last Qingming holiday.

Although both figures represent sharp drops, travelers have shown great satisfaction with services, the academy says in a report.

Areas with low risk of COVID-19 have seen evident rebounds.

Tourism in the Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet autonomous regions, as well as in Qinghai, Jilin, Yunnan, Anhui and Sichuan provinces, has recovered by more than 50 percent of the level of the holiday last year, data from the China Tourism Academy and China Unicom show.

Transportation bookings doubled during the three-day holiday, compared with the same period in March, Trip.com reports.

The agency's hotel bookings increased by nearly 60 percent month-on-month.

Most travelers are opting for trips within 200 kilometers from home.

Short-distance-tour bookings through Trip.com have tripled in April compared with March. Most are for weekends.

"The recent short-distance tour prices are the lowest in a decade," says Li Xuepeng, marketing officer with Trip.com's short-distance-travel business.