Tibet is expected to receive a record-high 4.02 million tourists in 2007 with a year-on-year increase of 64 percent, said an official Sunday.

The region's tourism revenues is estimated to hit 4.8 billion yuan (US$0.65 billion) this year, up 73.3 percent from last year, said Zhang Qingli, secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China at an economic work conference.

"The golden time of Tibet tourism has come," said Zhang.

The official attributed the rapid tourism growth to overseas promotional drives and the opening of Qinghai-Tibet railway and the third civilian airport in Nyingchi, which help to bring more tourists, from both home and abroad, to the plateau.

"The traditional low season of tourism, usually beginning after the Golden Week of National Holiday in October, seems not low at all," said Zhang.

The region received 2.5 million tourists last year and reaped 2.77 billion yuan in total tourism earnings, accounting for 9.6 percent of the region's gross domestic product.

Tibet now has 88 star-level hotels, which host nearly 50,000 guests, and 56 travel agencies.

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2007)