More tourist spots in Shanghai, including Happy Valley and Ocean Park, reopened to the public on Friday, the first day of the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holidays, in a more prominent sign indicating the mega city is restoring normalcy at a faster-than-expected speed after a tough two-month battle against Omicron.

With more venues resuming operations, local tourism is also picking up during the holiday, industry players told the Global Times on Friday, raising hopes that the financial center, home to 22 million residents, might see a peak of "retaliatory consumption" in June as the epidemic ebbs. 

Major theme resort Happy Valley Shanghai officially reopened its doors on Friday, with daily tourist limit set at 75 percent of maximum capacity following a 81-day closure. Happy Valley said it will offer free travel for medical staff nationwide until December 31 in tribute to their contribution to the battle against the epidemic. 

Happy Valley is Shanghai's first large-scale amusement park located in Songjiang District. It covers an area of 863,500 square meters. 

Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park also reopened on Friday. Between Friday and June 10, the park will offer free admission, with a cap of 5,000 visitors daily.

Shanghai Disney Resort, another major theme park in Shanghai, has yet to set a reopening date since closing on March 21.

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Double Fifth Festival because it falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, begins on Friday. It is traditionally tied to prayers for eliminating illnesses and disasters.

During the Dragon Boat Festival, more than 40 local scenic spots in Shanghai on Trip.com, an online travel company, have reopened, and bookings have also resumed, Trip.com told the Global Times on Friday.

Moreover, tourists are pouring in and have already surpassed pre-epidemic levels although most of the sites are still taking strict anti-epidemic measures such as mandatory real-name reservation and health code checks. 

"When I went to the wildlife zoo with my daughter yesterday, and saw youngsters eating, drinking and singing along the street in downtown Shanghai, I realized that the city is back normal in a faster-than-expected speed," a 45-year-old Shanghai-based college teacher told the Global Times on Friday. 

According to data from Trip.com, the average daily order transaction rate for the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holidays in Shanghai Binjiang Forest Park has increased by more than 20 times compared with March levels; the average daily bookings for the Oriental Pearl TV Tower has recorded an eleven-fold increase.

In addition, the average daily bookings at Shanghai Happy Valley and Shanghai Wildlife Park have increased by more than seven and four times respectively compared with March levels.

Thirty-two A-level tourist attractions in Shanghai have already reopened as of June 1, the city's cultural and tourism authorities had previously confirmed. 

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Century Park, Fengjing Ancient Town, Sheshan National Forest Park, Yuehu Sculpture Park, Jinshanzui Fishing Village, Jinshan City Beach, Guangfulin Relics Park, Luxun Park, and Shanghai Daguanyuan (Grandview Garden) are among some of the first major tourist attractions to welcome back patrons.

There are more than 6,000 hotels and 130 national A-level tourist attractions in Shanghai, in addition to more than 10,000 tourism enterprises and about 500,000 people working in the sector, according to a report from Xinhua News Agency. 

On May 31, the Shanghai municipal government also released new measures to promote the recovery of the tourism sector. The city said it will guide financial institutions to appropriately increase loan quotas and lower interest rates for tourism-related projects as well as expanded support from the city's special fund for tourism development for both vendors and major attractions.

Shanghai reported two local confirmed cases and one asymptomatic case on Friday, local officials confirmed during a press conference, warning that there remained a risk of a resurgence, asking residents to avoid large gatherings.  

A large scale return to work is also underway with necessary precautions in place. On Thursday, the CZ431 flight from Pudong to Chicago took off with a full load of 94 tons of cargo, marking the fourth freighter route, and all Shanghai bound flights have also resumed operations, China Southern said in a statement it sent to the Global Times on Friday.

Since the resumption of China Southern cargo planes in Shanghai on May 4, more than 100 freighter flights have been undertaken, carrying more than 7,200 tons of cargo, an increase of more than three times the previous month, the company said.