BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- China witnessed a remarkable surge in its culture and tourism market during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, which ended on Tuesday, with several market segments climbing to all-time highs.

The Spring Festival, traditionally a peak and lucrative period for cinemas, saw record box office revenue and audience turnout highs this year, according to the China Film Administration on Wednesday.

Based on the statistics up to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, box office revenues totaled a staggering 10 billion yuan (approximately 1.39 billion U.S. dollars) between Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, according to ticketing app Beacon.

The holiday also saw a significant rise in numbers of moviegoers, with 187 million people packing out theaters in China, the film administration announced.

Animated feature "Ne Zha 2" has emerged as the undisputed holiday leader, raking in over 5.05 billion yuan as of Wednesday, according to data from Beacon, making it the top-grossing domestic animated feature of all time.

As ticket sales continue to climb, the sequel could reach a total box office revenue of 6 billion yuan, which would be a record for Chinese film, Beacon projects.

As China's most important festival, the Spring Festival features a rich array of traditions and celebrations that mark the end of an old year and the joyful arrival of a new one. In recent years, it has also become a key driver for the tourism sector -- both domestically and internationally.

Fueled by the Spring Festival's inclusion on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in December 2024, this year's holiday saw a booming tourism market.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Wednesday, China saw a record 501 million domestic tourist trips during the 2025 Spring Festival holiday, up 5.9 percent year on year. Tourist spending reached a record high of over 677 billion yuan during the period, a 7 percent year-on-year increase.

More than 2.3 billion passenger trips were made across all regions in China during the holiday, including 96.26 million railway trips, 2.18 billion road trips, 9.41 million waterway trips and 18.24 million air trips, official data showed on Wednesday.

China recorded 14.37 million cross-border trips during the Spring Festival holiday, a 6.3 percent increase from the previous year and including 958,000 trips made by foreigners, according to statistics released by the National Immigration Administration on Wednesday. ■