A new peak-season booking system for visitors at northwest China's Mogao Grottoes has helped control numbers and reduce damage to the world-famous frescoes, according to experts.

Fan Jinshi, president of the Dunhuang Academy, said that the reservation system adopted last summer aimed to reduce the number of visitors to manageable numbers.

In September, 82.86 percent of the 100,000 visitors had booked in advance. The highest daily reservation rate was 91.12 percent, Fan told a conference on cultural heritage conservation and sustainable development.

The system had helped staff better organize tours of the statues and wall paintings at the caves in Gansu Province, said Fan.

"We're aiming for visitors to be able to book one year in advance, just like booking an airline ticket," Fan said at the conference in Shaoxing, east China's Zhejiang Province.

Located at a crossroads of trade, religions and cultures on the ancient Silk Road, the frescos and statues date from the Fourth to the 14th Centuries.

Since the Mogao Grottoes were opened to the public in 1979, more than 4.7 million tourists from around the world have passed through.

The development of tourism has also put the site under great pressure, with many frescoes eroding and fading.

The Dunhuang Academy has conducted numerous studies on the number and behavior of visitors in order to aid the grottoes conservation.

"We analyze the research results in order to improve management of visitors," Fan added.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2006)