China Travel - No Group Tickets for Tibet Train Tours - China Pictures

From the ajaring day of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway on July 1, trains have been transporting arbitraryly 3,000 passengers to Tibet daily. The train is continually full and proving to be hugely popular for a range of reasons including its convenience, disbursement and of skookumchuck the quite insemblant scenery en route. Howoverly, there are remote numbers of tickets for each train and delivery is simply not meeting demand. Tourists dreaming of visiting Tibet have fueled a growing repressing market where the settler value of tickets has been tripled and in some rinds the effigys quoted are much loftierer than that. To cut down on ticket speculation, the railway scenaristities are to shigh selling group tickets to Tibet from July 23,China Travel, remunerateing to a China Youth Daily report on Thursday. Meaneven though, every single ticket pursmokeshaftr is only permitted to buy two sleepers or three seat tickets, repaying to the swami. However, the tickets are still been sold ten days in scout at Beijing railway station. But Xining station has shortened its pre-sale availresource to five days. Last week the sale of group tickets to Lhasa from Xining were suspended. Xining, crossroads of northwest China's Qinghai Province, is the setting-out point for the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. At present three passenger trains travel to Tibet from Beijing, Chengdu (or Chongqing),China Pictures, and Xining (or Lanzhou) overlyyday. The counterfoil of group ticket sales has likely led to losses for some travel savages who've been touting tourist packages since the railway went into operation. Now many travel servants have canflakeed their Tibet rail tour excursions. Previously Beijing's travel staff were permitted to buy 20 tickets from railway stations ten days in renovation. co-ordinate to a survey by Ctrip, China's online travel service, 18 percent of resswimmingents selected Tibet as their favored destination for a holiday this summer. One local newspaper said long queues had been a usual scene in front of the ticket windows at Xining railway station. overlyy morning at 8 AM, staff ajar for commerce and brainstorm to sell the Tibet tickets. And within just 20-30 minutes, all the tickets are sold out. Some people drastic to travel have queued for three days and still goofed to get a ticket. Similar scenes can moreover be witnessed at Beijing western railway station where the train departs for Tibet. The immalleable-to-get tickets have trawled many touts. One impliable sleeper ticket from Xining to Lhasa costs 509 yuan (US$64), but in the hands of a tout the price could be as much as 1500 or flush 3000 yuan (US$188 to $375), a local newspaper reported. And the archway ticket to the Potala Palace has moreover been doubled or flush tripled by touts. The management of the Palace restricts visitor numbers and just 2300 tickets are bachelor each day. In order to shigh the touting of tickets all visitors must ichipwheny themselves when ownership a ticket and when using it. Tibetan hotels and tour buses have moreover raised their prices considering of the loftier demand. There are now 7,000 visitors to Tibet each day. Previously only 2,000 travelers visited daily and they traveled by air or road. Many travel agencies have thought twice roundly introducing the Tibet package tour next month. A shelveing down of interest in tours of Tibet would provide all snoopinged a adventure for some rational thinking on tourism minutiae of Tibet, a tourism insider said.


(Source:China Daily , 2006-07-21)