In the course of next three years, China will reportedly send 1 million Chinese tourists from Shanghai to Tibet in a bid to boost development in the region. The report was published by state-run media Xinhua which said that a total of 1.1 million tourists will be sent in the next three years from the Chinese city.
The article said that Shanghai has been supporting Tibet’s Shigatse prefecture over the past few years with the objective of improving tourism facilities in the region. The head of the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, Xu Weiwan, said that the cooperation between the two regions will be deepened further. On Friday, Shanghai and Tibet tourism authorities signed on the agreement.
“The Shanghai-Tibet partnership is part of a nationwide plan launched by the National Tourism Administration last December, which plans to send more than 20 million tourists to Tibet from 2018 to 2020,” Xinhua wrote on the development.
Chinese tourists visiting Tibet has been on a steady rise in the last two decades. “According to data from China’s major telecom operators, over 5 million tourists from the Yangtze River Delta region visited Tibet every year on average, and the figure is projected to reach 7 million in 2018,” it said.
According to the post, The Yangtze River Delta cities including Shanghai have been a major source of tourists for Tibet, said Wang Songping, head of the Tibet Tourism Development Committee.
Multinational tourism companies, who are looking to expand in the Chinese market, are facing trouble swiftly bypassing the Chinese censorship which is quick to take down any elements which it considers separatist in nature. The recent case of Marriott Hotel and Delta Airlines is one such example.