Azalea flowers seen in Skyland, a tourism resort in Anji county, Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/hz66.com]

The tourism industry in Huzhou's Anji county has experienced a strong recovery as more people are traveling following the nation's optimization of its epidemic control policies late last year.

Renowned as a rural travel destination in China, Anji recorded 7.74 million tourist trips from January to March, an uptick of 104.3 percent over 2019 before the COVID-19 epidemic and 151.8 percent higher than the same period in 2022, according to data from local tourism authorities.

Tourism revenue generated in the county during the three-month period amounted to 10.55 billion yuan ($1.54 billion), up 102.4 percent and 191.5 percent respectively when compared with the same period in 2019 and 2022.

Skyland, a resort in Anji, saw a stark increase in visitor numbers during this year's Spring Festival in January. Following the seven-day holiday, the resort still welcomed 4,000 to 5,000 visitors every day on weekends and a daily average of 2,000 tourists on weekdays.

According to Li Mingyu, a staff member at Skyland, the market recovery has been obvious, especially from the end of February to the middle of March, with visitors to the resort being primarily from cities including Suzhou, Changzhou and Shanghai.

To lure more visitors, the scenic spot has also invested several million yuan to grow a wide stretch of azalea flowers at the edge of cliffs.

Anji was recently ranked first on the list of top 10 rural travel destinations in China in spring released by Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.