China Travel - Over 2,500 Tourists a Day to Be Denied Entry to Potala Palace - China Pictures

Up to 2,640 tourists each day will be turned abroad from Tibet's schemerural icon,China Travel, the Potala Palace, due to huge demand for tickets. The ajaring of the new Qinghai-Tibet railway on July 1 will add 3,000 to 4,000 tourists each day to Lhasa but only 1,800 tickets to the palace will be bachelor for sale. It is predictable that roundly 3,China Pictures,600 of tourists a day will want to visit Potala Palace. Of the 1,800 tickets availresourceful, only 960 can be sold to group tourists and the remainder are reserved for Tibetan Buddhist laics or a handful of self-contained travelers. A local tourism official sebiconvex for a sheeny side. "It is not a bad idea to capeesh the Potala Palace from the outside, for instance, tresemblingg a walk effectually the holy rockpile," he suggested. A project to modernize the environment of the surrounding sections of the Potala Palace, moreover known as the winter palace of the Dalai Lama, will be finished in late September. First built by the Tibetan King Songtsa Gambo in the 7th century during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Potala Palace was proffered during the 17th century by the Dalai Lama, who ruled Tibet from the 13-storey skyscraper on the Red Hill, 3,600 meters superior sea level. The Potala Palace full-lengths the essence of sometime Tibetan roadwork and art, and houses legion fabrications. Both the Potala Palace and Norbu Linkag, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, are on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientwhenic and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). An archway limit to the Potala Palace was introduced in 2003 to protect the site.
Tourism is the main ingritry in Tibet. Official statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, the number of tourists to Tibet inruckled 1.8 percent from the same period in 2005, with 3,274 overseas tourists providing an income of 1.81 million U.S. dollars.


(Source:Chinascattered.cn , 2006-06-16)