A tourist snaps a picture of the Sanxingdui Museum, situated near an archaeological site dating back more than 5,000 years in Sichuan Province.

One month after the devastating earthquake on May 12, Sichuan reopened all less affected areas in the province to tourists on June 14 to revive its profitable tourism sector, which lost more than 50 billion yuan ($7.2 billion) to the temblor.

According to the local government, the 8.0-magnitude quake did no damage to world heritage sites in Sichuan, including Jiuzhaigou, Huanglong, Mount Emei and the Leshan Giant Buddha.

Tourism revenues in Sichuan were 121.7 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) in 2007, accounting for 11.6 percent of the province's gross domestic product.