From the opening day of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway on July 1, trains have
been transporting approximately 3,000 passengers to Tibet daily. The train is always full and proving to
be hugely popular for a range of reasons including its convenience,
cost and of course the quite incredible scenery en route.
However, there are limited numbers of tickets for each train and
supply is simply not meeting demand. Tourists dreaming of visiting
Tibet have fueled a growing black market where the face value of
tickets has been tripled and in some cases the figures quoted are
much higher than that. ?
To cut down on ticket speculation, the railway authorities are
to stop selling group tickets to Tibet from July 23, according to a
China Youth Daily report yesterday.
Meanwhile, every individual ticket purchaser is only permitted
to buy two sleepers or three seat tickets. However, the tickets are
still sold 10 days in advance at Beijing railway station. But
Xining station has shortened its pre-sale availability to five
days.
Last week the sale of group tickets to Lhasa from Xining was
suspended. Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, is the departure point for
the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
At present three passenger
trains travel to Tibet from Beijing, Chengdu (or Chongqing), and
Xining (or Lanzhou) everyday.
The cancellation of group ticket sales has likely led to losses
for some travel agencies that have been touting tourist packages
since the railway went into operation. Now many travel agencies
have cancelled their Tibet rail tour excursions. Previously
Beijing's travel agencies were permitted to buy 20 tickets from
railway stations 10 days in advance.
According to a survey by Ctrip, China's online travel service,
18 percent of respondents 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. Every
morning at 8 AM, staff open for business and begin to sell the
Tibet tickets. And within just 20-30 minutes, all the tickets are
sold out. Some people desperate to travel have queued for three
days and still failed to get a ticket. Similar scenes can also be
witnessed at Beijing Western Railway Station where the train
departs for Tibet.
The hard-to-get tickets have attracted many touts. One hard
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 even 3000
yuan (US$188 to $375), a local newspaper reported.?
And the entrance ticket to the Potala Palace has also been
doubled or even tripled by touts. The management of the palace
restricts visitor numbers and just 2,300 tickets are available each
day. In order to stop the touting of tickets all visitors must
identify themselves when buying a ticket and when using it.
?
Tibetan hotels and tour buses have also raised their prices
because of the high 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 about introducing the
Tibet package tour next month. A cooling down of interest in tours
of Tibet would provide all concerned a chance for some rational
thinking on tourism development of Tibet, a tourism insider
said.
(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong, July 21, 2006)
