Tibetannet

Surrounded by thick forests and millennia-old snow-capped peaks, Lunang town in Nyingch city, dubbed "China's Switzerland", is attracting more tourists thanks to its efforts to build an international tourism destination.

Lunang is some 400 kilometers from Lhasa, capital city of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region.

Located at an average altitude of 3,700 meters alongside national highway 318, Lunang is enriched with biological diversity, agreeable weather, unique ethnic cultures and beautiful landscapes. The Mount Namchak Barwa is not far from there.

In the past, only a few local villagers operated family inns in the village and sold local products to tourists, and there were not many tourists in the town.

Starting from 2011 more than 300,000 yuan ($42,389) has been invested in tourism infrastructure construction as a Tibet aid project, going toward projects including water supply, sewage disposal and trash recycling, all part of the effort to turn the town into an international tourism area.

The international tourism town project was officially started in March 2017, and more than one million tourists visited the town in 2018.

Currently, more villagers are involved in the tourism business around the town as well. According to a rough estimate, there are more than 120 family inns in the Tashi Gang village adjacent to the town, and the per-capita disposable income of rural residents in the village hit more than 26,000 yuan in 2018.