Tibet is expected to receive 5.64 million tourists in the next five years, according to Minjia, deputy director of the tourism administration of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
He told a press conference Wednesday that Tibet will attract 1. 37 million overseas visitors and 4.27 million from other parts of China during the period. And the total tourism revenues will reach six billion yuan (about 723 million U.S. dollars), accounting for over one tenth of the region's GDP.
Statistics show that over the past five years, Tibet received two million domestic and overseas tourists, up 20.5 percent annually, and earned 1.96 billion yuan in revenues.
The Tibetan tourism market began to be tapped in the late 1970s, and it resumed its prosperity in the last decade after a slide in the 1980s, due to social progress and economic development, the official said.
(People's Daily 05/17/2001)
