Tourists again enjoy Tibet high life

The autonomous region attracted more than 11,000 foreign tourists and had a total revenue of over $78 million from overseas travelers in 2019, a rise of 53 percent and 44 percent respectively over 2018.

"Currently, the number of inbound tourists from Nepal visiting Tibet has reached the same level as pre-pandemic 2019 figures, but the number of inbound tourists from other countries and regions is fewer than before the pandemic," says Dekyi, an official of the local tourism department.

International tourists visiting the autonomous region come from more than 70 countries, including Nepal, the United States, Malaysia, Vietnam, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.

"Most overseas tourists like to tour places with unique features of Tibetan culture, such as the cities of Lhasa, Shigatse, Lhokha, and the Ngari prefecture," Dekyi says.

She adds that overseas travelers have to go through approval procedures to visit Tibet. The application processing time for the permit has been cut to about three days, compared to more than a week before 2020.

"Our department has been coordinating with other departments to build a platform to supervise the autonomous region's inbound tourism," she says.

Dekyi calls the platform a "breakthrough", which helps the local authorities significantly shorten the time to process international tourists' application procedures to visit Tibet.

"It has effectively helped inbound travel agencies to ease the problem of long-cycled certification," she adds.