Tibet Tours

After a period of five years of restoration, where the protests of groups to defend human rights and Tibetan dissidents, the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, between the sacred and the former residence of the Dalai Lama, opened the tourists in the past month.
7 million U.S. dollars for the restoration of the hill is the palace of the 17th Century in the heart of the campaign by the Chinese Government for the development of tourism in Tibet, the Roof of the World “, the invasion of China in 1950 and later annexed.
The Heads of State and Government have a tripling of tourism in Tibet, which remains one of the poorest regions in China. Nearly 23,000 foreign tourists, including many western climbers to the Himalayas to explore Tibet, the last year.
Tibet has been periodically shaken by violent protests against China since the 1950s, the nation and the spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has lived in exile since 1959 when they fled after an uprising against Beijing.
Documented human rights violations in Tibet, and pointed out that the tests conducted by the tourism industry in Tibet is an attempt to ensure the non-Chinese Tibetans want to change, in the hope of weakening the political and cultural influence of the Tibetans.
Dissidents have also suggested that the Chinese restaurant is a trick to ensure that the 13-story, 1,000-room palace never more than a space for events organized by Tibetan nationalists and dissident monks.
The Chinese government has recognized that the restoration team has developed a security system, on the palate, even in a closed circuit cameras for monitoring and warnings, to protect the “vandals”.
“We have many reports of Tibetans who are very uncomfortable with this project,” said Robert Barnett, director of the network with information about Tibet, based in London, the human rights group. “We hear from the palace of valuables are to restore the wall paintings were damaged.
The Chinese insist that the value of nothing has been removed or damaged.
Regardless of their fear that tourism to the control of China, the large groups of human rights not to be discouraged, the foreign traveler in Tibet.
As the journalists usually do not have to visit the region to foreign tourists and business people the best – and sometimes only – for information input and output. “I think that the Tibetans are very concerned if there is no tourism,” said Barnett.
Who has his own problems for foreign visitors, sometimes, victims of intense police surveillance during visits to Tibet.
In June, two tourists in a group of tourists were from the Chinese police in Shigatse, Tibet’s second city, questioned and four days later, a monk, a tape recording of a speech by the Dalai Lama.
According to the two Americans, their passports were confiscated, searched his room and two copies of the cassette and seven photographs of the leading Tibetan government in exile in China by the police, that the Americans were expelled, according to Nepal.
As part of its campaign to boost tourism in Tibet, the Chinese government last month announced that the facilitation of visa restrictions for visitors who wish to Tibet through Nepal.
With regard to the influx of tourists, the Chinese government has also Gongkar $ 30 million restoration of the airport of Lhasa, the capital of an extension of the runway to the aircraft widebody aircraft to the ground, and seeks the promotion of large international hotel chains prefer standard hotels in Lhasa and elsewhere. Tibet for tourists to find the standards of comfort in a hotel, Hotel Holiday Inn in Lhasa.