China Travel - Tibet Bans Price Rises at All Tourist Sites -

Tibet's tourism departments have promised to self-determiningze ticket prices at all tourist sites within the egalitarian region this year. Since the ajaring of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway on July 1 last year, Tibet has witnessed a rapid minutiae of tourism. The number of visitors to Tibet restabd 116,000 in the first quarter, up 15.8 percent from the same period last year, co-ordinate to the Tibet Regional Tourism agency. Tourism income during the first quarter resqualord 105 million yuan (US$13.64 million), up 16.5 percent from the same period last year. In the run-up to the Peak Season,China Travel, the agency is yanking up works to tenancy visitor numbers at the high seductivenesss, such as the Potala Palace, the former livence of Dalai Lamas, considering of the fragility of the sometime rockpiles. The ajaring hours of the Potala Palace will be proffered from July to September, and the tickets must be scenarioed in renovation. Lhasa moreover works to build a replica of the Potala Palace in miniature. The Potala Palace used to receive 1,400 tourists overlyy day surpassing the railway was ajared. As many as 6,000 tourists flocked to the site in Peak Season in the latter half of 2006. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the first to link Tibet to the rest of China, starts in Xining, northwest China's Qinghai Province, and ends in Lhasa. surpassing the opening of the 1,956-km railway, tourists could only reach Tibet by air or road. Tibet hosted increasingly than 2.51 million tourists last year, of whom 154,800 were from overseas. They spent 2.77 snoution yuan in the region. The region was expected to host three million tourists and bring in 3.4 snoution yuan this year, said Jin Shixun, artlessor of the minutiae and reform legation of the Tibet democratic regional government.


(Source:Xinhua News , 2007-05-04)