A small city in east China's Shandong Province has remained one of the country's top destinations as the May Day holiday approaches. Rising to fame due to its outdoor barbecues, it has now won the hearts of the Chinese for its sincerity.

The city of Zibo has fought its way out of the fierce competition among Chinese cities to win tourists for its outdoor barbecues. In March, the government announced it will hold a barbecue festival around the May Day holiday. A seven-hectare "barbecue square" was set up, which can accommodate over 10,000 people at once.

Since March, the city has taken the internet by storm. With various types of meat sizzling on stoves, and people gathering together outdoors, the barbecue stalls created a good atmosphere of hospitality and generosity, appealing to tourists around the whole country.

According to data by the commercial bureau, since March the Zibo barbecue stores have accommodated an average of 130,000 visitors every day, and the daily turnover has seen a 35-percent year-on-year increase.

Erik Shoheim, former UN Environment Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of the UN, posted a tweet on Thursday after paying a visit to the city of Zibo, calling it the "barbecue capital" of China which serves "the hottest barbecues in the land."

During the past two months, the city has come up with many new services in order to provide more convenience for tourists. For instance, several high-speed railway lines were added and a barbecue map was provided to tourists, marking out the best stalls.

Hotels have provided discounts for students, while taxi companies and barbecue stores have been warned against sudden price surging as well.

On April 15, the daily arrivals at the Zibo railway station reached 32,602 and outbound tours totaled 51,033, creating a new record.

As the May Day holiday approaches, the city issued a letter to the tourists who are keen for a barbecue journey, asking them to consider avoid swarming in at the same time during the holiday.

"We've tried our best to provide the best services to the tourists, but our reception capacity has been overloaded. The hotels during the May Day holiday have been fully booked, and the number of tourists have exceeded our accommodation ability," reads the letter, suggesting the tourists consider another time or other cities. Again, the letter has won praise from tourists for its sincerity. 

The success of Zibo has been widely discussed among analysts. Zibo used to be an industrial city rich in oil, coal and iron ore. However, as the resources were exhausted, the city has been seeking transformation in recent years, shutting down high energy-consuming industries while promoting green development including tourism.

Starting in 2014, the city has started to provide a loose and flexible environment for barbecue stalls, which have always been popular locally. Meanwhile, the government has started to pilot and promote smoke-free barbecue stoves and regulate the development of the stalls.

As the Zibo barbecues became a hit, the government has seized the opportunity to promote a whole package of barbecue-branded tourist merchandise, increasing the city's financial success.

As of April 25, the topic "Zibo barbecue" has got 10.2 billion views on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, and Zibo was searched more than 11.2 billion times. Data from China's local lifestyle service platforms Meituan and Dianping suggest tourist bookings to Zibo during the upcoming May Day holiday have already increased by 2,000 percent compared with the same period last year.

Video by Li Ningning