Promotions for off-season travel helped drive up visitor numbers to southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region in the first 10 months by 20.8 percent over the same period last year, the regional tourism administration said Tuesday.

While the majority of the 6.37 million tourists were Chinese, the "roof of the world" also received about 204,000 foreign tourists from January to October, up 34.1 percent year on year.

Wang Songping, deputy chief of the regional tourism administration, attributed the growth in tourist arrivals to local government efforts to promote tourism in the fall and winter.

These included sponsoring a series of Tibetan culture activities, and cutting hotel rates and ticket prices to major tourist destinations, said Wang.

The region's tourism income grew 45.1 percent year on year to 6.45 billion yuan (US$966 million), said Wang.

(Xinhua News Agency November 9, 2010)