Beijing has seen the arrival of 660,000 tourists during the first three days of the Spring Festival holiday, from Feb. 2 to 4, said Beijing Municipal Bureau of Tourism officials late Friday.

The tourism data was collected at the city' s 22 scenic spots.

On February 4, official statistics showed that 40,000 tourists swarmed into the Palace Museum, repeating the number from last year' s national holiday, while about 14,500 ski-lovers enjoyed their time at 14 ski resorts in Beijing on the same day.

Not only scenic spots, tourists also gravitated to some cultural venues in Beijing.

The Beijing-based National Art Museum of China holds an exhibition on "donated masterpieces over the past 50 years (since its completion in 1952)" from Jan. 27 to Feb. 26 and spectators can visit, free of charge, during the Spring Festival holiday (between Feb. 3 and 9).

On February 5, visitors queued up in a 200-meter long line waiting for check-in to the museum around 10 a.m.

Wang Xiumei, 86, decided to visit the museum with her daughter ten days before.

"My husband and I were crazy about traditional Chinese paintings decades ago, I have to see some masterpieces today, rather than hearing about them later." Wang said.

Hundreds of the nation' s art works are displayed in a dozen halls in the five-storey exhibition area, including oil paintings, ink paintings, wood block prints, shadow puppets, paper cuttings, clay sculptures and embroideries.

"I changed my mind and got off the bus on my way to a temple fair. My children and I want to see some elegant art works, as opposed to eating and playing during Spring Festival as before," said another citizen named Lu Hongmao.

Big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou opened their sports venues to the public during the Spring Festival holiday.