A ticket to the good life

As tourism grows, transport in Nyingchi has improved continuously, even though roads need further upgrading to draw more tourists, particularly those with their own vehicles.[Photo by Liu Xiangrui/China Daily]

The Basum Lake scenic spot's developer pays seven villages including theirs annual bonuses each year from the scenic spot's annual profits.

With the growth of tourism, a large range of agricultural and sideline products, such as home-raised pigs and matsu-takes collected in the forest, have a ready market.

"Thanks to tourism these things are being turned into cash," says Tenzin Sangdrub. The matsu-take business has become an important source of income for villagers, he says.

In addition to the sale of tickets to scenic attractions, rural home inns and restaurants are generating a great deal of income and, of course, creating jobs.

Nyingchi is now reckoned to have about 540 rural home inns, and these housed more than 3 million tourists last year.

Over the past few years rural inns have sprung up like matsu-takes in Suosong village, deep in the Grand Canyon of the Yarlung Zangbo River, and on the back of that the average annual income per person in the village has reached 10,000 yuan, says Tenzin Sangdrub.