Tourism authority in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region said Saturday the plateau region hosted 295,400 domestic and overseas tourists during the past 8-day National Day holiday season.

That represented a rise of 14.96 percent from the same period last year, said a spokesman for the Tibet Autonomous Regional Tourism Department.

The autonomous region raked in more than 110 million yuan (about US$16.18 million) in tourism revenue from October1 to 8, up 36.27 percent year-on-year, said the spokesman.

This year's National Day holiday season, the longest ever, started on October 1. It included the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on October 3.

Tibet hosted more than 4.09 million domestic and overseas tourists in the first eight months of this year, up 248.1 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2009)