Tibet, Nepal to jointly build Trans-Himalayan tourist zone

China's Tibet Autonomous Region and Nepal will join hands in building the Himalayan tourist zone based on each other's tourist resources, according to a government official.

Zhou Liguo, a leading official of the Tibet Regional Tourism Bureau, said that tourism has become a pillar industry for Tibet and Nepal. In recent years, Nepal has launched new tourist programs, such as drifting, hiking and exploration, offering Tibet much good experience to draw on.

Meanwhile, with the improvement of Chinese living standard, more and more domestic tourists prefer outbound travels. The expanding tourist market needs more bilingual guides speaking both Chinese and Nepali.

Lying north of the Himalayas, Tibet features landscape of glaciers and lakes, different from Nepal with luxuriantly green woods. Peak seasons of the two are exactly opposite. Visitors to Nepal are expected to travel to Tibet as well, so as to promote Tibet's winter tourism, Zhou said.

The bureau indicated in mid-November that new travel routes would open between Tibet's capital of Lhasa and Nepal's capital of Kathmandu in the near future.

"Now, we are preparing to launch a tourist route from Guangzhou (capital of southern China's Guangdong Province) to Lhasa via Hong Kong and Nepal," Zhou added.

"Trans-Himalayan scenic spots will combine various types of ethnic folklores from glaciers to primitive forests," said Yang Dongyun, chief marketing supervisor of Tibet's Tea-Horse Road Travel Agency.

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