LHASA, TIBET: For the first time in years, the daily queue of visitors at the foot of the Potala Palace has evaporated.
Tibet's all-important tourism industry dipped almost 70 per cent in terms of tourist arrivals since anti-government riots erupted on March 14.
The local authorities are so desperate to jump-start the sector that they are rewarding travel agents 100 yuan (S$20) for every traveller brought in.
Those incentives - from a government fund of one million yuan - and the aggressive marketing of Tibet as a winter holiday spot are aimed at bringing back the hordes of Chinese and foreign tourists who usually swarm the mystical mountainous land during these peak summer months, Tibet Tourism Bureau's deputy director-general Tranor told The Straits Times in an interview last week.
His office has also been inviting travel agents from some key markets - such as Germany, South Korea and Taiwan - to Lhasa.
He said: 'We want them to come and see that it is safe, that it is not any different from before the riots.'
Even as unconfirmed reports emerged of the authorities shooting at Tibetan protesters in Tibetan-inhabited areas in neighbouring Sichuan province this week, the streets of Lhasa seemed calm under heavy paramilitary patrol.
Chinese tourists and a smattering of foreign ones are now trickling back but lingering security worries - plus Beijing's tightening of its visa regime because of the Olympics - have dashed hopes here that the Games would help bring a tourism bonanza for Tibet.
'We are not so hopeful of recovery before the Olympics and Paralympics are over,' said Mr Tranor who, like some Tibetans, goes by one name.
He noted that international tour packages, usually booked six months in advance, were cancelled after the March violence, which led the government to lock down the region and shut out all travellers.
It reopened to domestic tour groups on April 24 before finally allowing foreign tourists back in from June 25.
Tourism has become a key plank of Beijing's strategy to spur economic development in the far south-western region, particularly since the opening of a railway linking the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to inland China two years ago.
The high-altitude train ride to the plateau known as the 'roof of the world' had spurred a 'Tibet fever' and a wave of interest in Tibetan Buddhism and culture among mainlanders, who have surpassed foreign travellers as the bulk of Tibet's visitors.
Last year, Tibet's 4.02 million domestic and international tourists - up 60 per cent from 2006 - pumped 4.8 billion yuan into its fast-growing economy. That made up more than 14 per cent of the region's annual gross domestic product.
This year, an even more ambitious target of 5 million tourists had been set, said Mr Tranor. Things looked on track in the winter months of January and February which saw 110,000 tourists, with about half from overseas - up 60 per cent from the same period last year.
Indeed, there were some 4,000 tourists in Tibet on March 14 itself, but they were sent away within three days, he said.
In total, tourist arrivals in Tibet in the first half of this year fell 69 per cent compared to the same period last year, with revenue dropping 71.2 per cent.
Beijing says the Lhasa riots, the worst in two decades, killed 22 people but the Tibetan government-in-exile says at least 203 Tibetans were killed and about 1,000 hurt in China's crackdown following a wave of protests across Tibetan-inhabited areas in nearby provinces.
Mr Huang Lihua, general manager of the Tibet Tourism Corporation, the largest travel agency in Tibet, said: 'It is a small minority of Tibetan separatists who made trouble. Most ordinary folk here want a stable life.' His company has suffered a loss of five million yuan since March.
For some tourists though, politics is barely a concern and there is no better time than now to visit Tibet.
With his wife and four children, Mr Delacroix Bruno, 46, a lawyer from Belgium, toured the Potala Palace and other key sights in Lhasa on a three-day visit last week. He said: 'We see lots of police officers and army personnel on the streets but we are not worried. We are here just for a holiday.'
A Beijing businesswoman, 35, who asked not to be named, was on her sixth trip to Tibet. She said: 'The heavy troop presence may seem scary at first, but it does not bother me now. I have never been able to come here in peak tourist season and get discounted air tickets and accommodation.'
This article was first published in The Straits Times on August 23, 2008.
