National Day holiday tourist arrivals rise in Tibet

LHASA, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 2 million tourists visited Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region during the weeklong National Day holiday, a rise of 12.5 percent from the same period last year, local authorities said Friday.

The region's tourism revenue rose 10.2 percent from a year earlier to 1.03 billion yuan (about 160 million U.S. dollars) in the same period, according to the regional tourism department.

The tourism growth in the region is partly due to effective epidemic control across the country and no COVID-19 cases in Tibet.

Earlier this month, the region's tourism department also launched a tourist route around Lhasa and nine suburban routes to give holidaymakers a feel of the countryside.

Statistics show that in 2020, Lhasa received more than 20.08 million domestic and foreign tourists, with tourism revenue at 30.1 billion yuan.