After months of winter closure, Panshan Mountain in Tianjin's Jizhou district reopened on Friday, welcoming visitors with a grand mountain-opening festival. The district is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of tourists during the upcoming Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, holiday.

Jizhou district has unveiled 16 spring tourism activities across four themes — spring outings, spring sightseeing, spring entertainment, and spring competitions, according to Song Weilong, head of the district's culture and tourism bureau. Three spring flower-viewing routes have been designed, featuring 15 attractions to meet the travel needs of families and self-driving visitors.

"The 21-year legacy has made the Panshan Mountain festival a highly influential cultural tourism brand in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This year's event not only preserves traditions and heritage but also introduces new business forms and expands scenarios — a vivid practice of cultural tourism collaboration within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," Rong Zucheng, chairman of Tianjin Yuyang Ecological Construction Development Co, said.

To encourage cultural tourism consumption, Panshan Mountain has reduced its annual pass price from 120 yuan ($17.4) to 98 yuan, offering unlimited free entry throughout the year. Five other scenic spots in the district are also offering exclusive discounts during designated periods.

The opening ceremony, held at the scenic spot's New Mountain Gate Square, featured performances, including Jingju, or Peking Opera, showcasing China's rich traditional performing arts, alongside a traditional show of an immersive historical reenactment of Emperor Qianlong's mountain tour.

A key highlight of the festival is the integration of tourism, consumption and automobiles, creating a new model aimed at activating the spring tourism market and supporting the high-quality development of tourism in Jizhou district.

The festival held an unveiling ceremony for a Xu Xiake sightseeing milestone marker. Xu Xiake, a renowned Chinese travel writer and geographer from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), once visited Panshan Mountain, and the marker commemorates his legacy as a bridge connecting ancient and modern cultural tourism.

According to traffic forecasts from the Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission, during the festival period (April 3 to 7), the Tianjin railway network is expected to handle about 1.5 million passenger arrivals and departures, a year-on-year increase of 4.6 percent. Tianjin Binhai International Airport is projected to serve about 146,000 passengers, up 1.08 percent from last year.

As the mountain gates open to welcome visitors, the festival marks the beginning of spring tourism in northern China.

"The cultural tourism has enriched the villagers and made our lives better," Wang Jinpeng, head of the Jizhou District Veteran Cadres Orchestra, said.