Lhasa playing a perfect rooftop holiday-resort

Lhasa, which is often described as the city of sunlight on the roof of the world, is ready for an influx of tourists during the seven-day holiday beginning today.

Lhasa, May 1 : Lhasa, which is often described as the city of sunlight on the roof of the world, is ready for an influx of tourists during the seven-day holiday beginning today.

The city will have around 200,000 tourist arrivals between May 1 and 7.

There are now 226 star-rated hotels and guest-houses in Lhasa, with 22,798 beds, which is an increase of 33 hotels and 2,210 beds from a year ago.

Sixty-two percent of the rooms of the 99 hotels authorized to handle overseas tourists have been pre-booked, a Xinhua report quoted Ga Ga, director of Lhasa tourism bureau, as saying.

A tourism official said: "We began preparing for the forthcoming holiday travel season in late March."

The city tourism bureau has offered crash courses on how to deal with customers, to more than 700 former herders who now work in downtown hotels.

Tibet is expected to host three million tourists and rake in 3.4 billion yuan this year, according to Jin Shixun, director of the development and reform commission of Tibet Autonomous Regional Government.

The region had 116,700 domestic and overseas tourists in the first three months of the year, a rise of 15.8 percent from a year ago, and raked in 105 million yuan in revenue, according to figures from Tibet Autonomous Regional Bureau of Statistics.

ANI