[Photo/IC]

Shanghai saw strong growth of consumption with people visiting from outside the city during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, a proof of the economic vitality of the special location, according to official sources.

Travelers to Shanghai spent 15.55 billion yuan ($2.18 billion) in total via 14.46 million passenger trips taken during the Chinese New Year holiday, which ended on Friday, surging 21.6 percent and 41.8 percent year-on-year respectively, according to big data collected by China UnionPay.

Among all, consumers from Jiangsu province contributed the largest spending amount with 20.2 percent of the consumption, followed by consumers from provinces of Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shandong and Anhui.

Up to 56.9 billion yuan worth of expenditure was made both online and at brick-and-mortar stores during the holiday period in the country's eastern metropolis, according to the statistics of the Consumer Market Big Data Laboratory (Shanghai).

Data from the big data lab also indicated that the city's major 35 business districts handled 28.73 million passenger trips in foot traffic, surging 11.9 percent from that of a year ago.