People of the Miao ethnic group are seen at Wanda Town of Danzhai County in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

BEIJING, July 5  -- For-profit businesses in China's cultural industry created jobs for more than 1.6 million people in 2020, statistics from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed.

Companies engaging in the industry numbered 208,900 and logged annual earnings of 996.7 billion yuan (around 154 billion U.S. dollars). About 170 billion yuan of this number was profit, said the ministry in a report.

The COVID-19 epidemic dealt a heavy blow to domestic tourism in the year, causing a year-on-year plummet of 52.1 percent in domestic tourist visits and 61.1 percent in revenues from domestic tourism, said the report.

The number of A-level tourist spots increased by 930 from the figure in late 2019 to 13,332 by the end of 2020, it added.