Tourism booming at World's Third Pole

Winter tourism

Like most tourist destinations across the world, Tibet sees a strong seasonality in its tourism industry. Tourists tend to swarm in from May to October, while the off-season lasts from November to April as the air often gets thinner, and the weather is cold and dry.

With a package of incentives released in February, including free admission to 115 tourist attractions and lower prices for starred hotels, touring vehicles and airfares, winter tourism has shown positive changes.

The number of tourists to Lhasa and Nyingchi both surged by more than 50 percent from Feb. 1 to April 30. The Potala Palace in Lhasa has seen its visitors more than double in February compared with the same month of last year.

Statistics from the regional tourism authority show that from January to April, more than 2.67 million domestic tourists came to Tibet, up 63.5 percent from the same period last year, while Tibet took in tourism revenue of more than 3.5 billion yuan, up 62.8 percent.

During the same period, the occupancy rates of international hotels, chain hotels and boutique homestays in Lhasa and Nyingchi both exceeded 80 percent, much higher than in normal years.

Known as the "sunlight city" in Chinese, Lhasa has more than 3,000 hours of sunshine annually on average. It is sunny on most winter days, therefore, basking in the winter sunlight in Lhasa has been a selling point of the winter tourism promotion.

Li Xinyu, vice president of Ctrip Group, noted that thanks to the rising awareness of the all-for-one tourism and the winter promotion, Tibetan's tourism has entered a golden period and witnessed explosive growth.

Ctrip data point to a trend of consumption upgrading too, he said at the expo. In 2018, domestic tourists' average stay in Tibet has been extended to 9.6 days from 9 days, and each tourist spends 9,893 yuan on average, about 800 yuan more than the previous year.