Tibet Autonomous Region has received a total of 391,000 tourists in July, or a 50 percent increase over the same period of 2005, said Zhanuo, deputy director of the autonomous regional tourism bureau.

Zhanuo also acknowledged three major problems with local tourism that have been exposed since the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

First, it is difficult to get tickets of the trains going in and out of Tibet as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway becomes the most popular rail route and brings a new turn of "Tibet craze", and the cancellation of group tickets causes tourism agencies in both Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province to return a lot of group tickets and, therefore, there is an ensuring rise in the number of complaints.

Secondly, tickets for the Potala Palace are hard to get due to its limited carrying capability during the period of overhauls and face-lifting and its age-old construction structure that needs to be protected in a scientific way. This problem will exist for a long time to come and become much more prominent with the rapid development of local tourism in Tibet.

Thirdly, there are increased difficulties in the management of tourism, more hidden problems with security and regulation measures can hardly match the needs of tourism development, along with a sharp rise in the number of tourists and new circumstances and problems that have emerged in reception work and market orders.

"The operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway has a long-term and profound effect on the economic growth of Tibet and brings opportunities to the readjustment of Tibetan economic structure," said Wang Daiyuan, deputy director of the Economy Strategy Research Institute of the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences.

He also said, "Tibetan tourism will be the first to be readjusted, as Tibet now suffers a shortage of hotels and restaurants. Local tertiary industry that is led by tourism will have a big, irresistible chance to develop, which will represent the beginning to readjust the economic structure in Tibet and keep optimizing and upgrading it."

By People's daily Online