The tourism administration of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has launched a two-month-long pageant to select Tibetan beauties to serve as image ambassadors for tourism promotion.

Xia Huiqiong, who is in charge of the pageant that was launched on Sunday, said that all female Tibetans aged between 18 and 30 and at least 1.65 meters tall are qualified for the competition.

According Xia, they will accept applications from Lhasa, the regional capital of Tibet, Xigaze, also in Tibet, as well as in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

The regional winner will be chosen via three rounds of contests. Special prizes will also be given to ten contestants. Special prize winners will move on to promote tourism at the prefecture level.

Latest statistics show that Tibet hosted 505,000 tourists in the first six months of the year, 3.1 times more than the same period last year. Of the total, overseas tourist arrivals made up 37,000.

The tourists brought earnings of 433.34 million yuan (US$52.4 million) to the autonomous region, 2.8 times more than the same period of last year. Overseas tourists contributed 9.3 million dollars to the total figure, a 1.9 times rise from the first six months of last year.

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2004)