(Yicai Global) Oct. 7 -- Chinese card payment giant China UnionPay saw its online transactions go up during the first three days of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday..

China UnionPay's online payments during the Oct. 1-Oct. 3 period reached 921.5 billion yuan (about 135.31 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 9.6 percent year on year.

On the first day of the national holiday, payments over the China UnionPay network exceeded 330 billion yuan, an increase of 15.5 percent over the same day of last year.

Tourism became popular in the period with the country's effective containment of COVID-19. The number of domestic tourists during the eight-day holiday is expected to reach up to 600 million, according to China's online travel agency Trip.com Group.

China UnionPay is the country's largest bank card payment processor, and UnionPay cards are accepted in more than 170 countries and regions around the world.