KATHMANDU: Despite ongoing border disputes with Nepal, China has reported that disputed Tibet receives more than 1,000 international tourists to the area daily, the Tibet Tourism Bureau said on Monday. In early May, groups of foreign tourists in Nepal were gearing up for a trip into Tibet, but many were forced to stay in Nepal after China continued to implement a policy that only visitors of the same nationality were permitted to enter Tibet from Nepal. This means that groups of differing nationalities are barred from going to Tibet from the Nepal side. The bureau said 1,588 international tourists from 40 countries, including the United States, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Japan and Nepal, visited Tibet on Sunday. The number of tourists from the United States on that day reached 330, the largest group among those from the above-mentioned countries. And the following three tourist groups are Germans, Malaysians and Singaporeans, according to the tourism bureau. Andrzej Brozek, a Polish man traveling with a group of tourists, said he visited the Potala Palace on Sunday, adding that he and his group will stay in Tibet for four more days. Brozek said his group also visited the Jokhang Temple, a key Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the heart of Lhasa, and Barkhor Street, one of the city's oldest streets. A tour guide surnamed Yang said his company is getting busier every day. Sunday saw Yang guiding a group of Japanese tourists around the city. Art stores on Barkhor Street said an increasing number of foreign tourists have visited their stores in recent days to buy artwork. The bureau said Tibet received 1.45 million tourists in the first five months of the year, showing an increase of 25.7 percent year on year. Of the total number of tourists, 1.42 million were domestic tourists, the regional tourism bureau said in a statement. The plateau region earned 1.36 billion yuan ($215.87 million) in domestic tourism revenues during the five-month period, the bureau said. The bureau said Tibet expects 10 million tourist arrivals and 12 billion yuan in tourism revenues this year. According to the tourism bureau, nearly 8.427 million domestic tourists and 270,800 international tourists visited Tibet in 2011.
