Is Tibet open for business?

Tour operator KE Adventure has just announced that, despite China claiming to have re-opened Tibet following the riots in March, in actuality this is not the case.

Only a handful of tourists have been granted permits and apparently no permits will be issued to group tours or those travelling overland from Nepal. Less of an open door, then, than a cat-flap. For small cats.

So where does this leave those wanting to go to Tibet? Would you dare to book a trip to the region now? Rumours suggest that the region won’t be fully open again until after the Paralympics have finished – but what guarantee is there that, even after that, China won’t decide to continue keeping travellers out?

Bad news for Tibet is good news for Nepal, though, with Himalaya-interested travellers diverting their hols to the new democracy, or to Bhutan, instead. Nepal could do with the visitors, following the Maoist uprisings there that scared off travellers. But then so could China – with the Olympics proving a bit of a damp squib, and the devastating Sichuan earthquake rendering the area offlimits, it’s not been a good year for the world’s most populous nation.

The Olympics is supposed to showcase a nation – which I suppose it has. Only rather than attracting tourists its having the opposite effect, leaving a bad taste in the global mouth.

But I suppose that doesn’t matter if you’re not allowed in anyway…

For more on the Tibet situation, have a look on www.wanderlust.co.uk