Unlike tourism in other major cities in China, tourism in Tibet has its unique flavor. This special region’s unique cultural and political situation makes traveling there interesting. First of all, all foreign nationals entering Tibet need to book a tour with a licensed travel agency. Any places they go they need to be “guided”, aka, “escorted” by English speaking guides. This is a double-edged sword. You might think that travel agents welcome this regulation since now the big spenders are like fish in the net. But some subtle difficulties it brings upon are invisible to outsiders. Many tourists to Tibet are not technically “luxury” tourists. For all I know, back-packers, lone travalers, adventure -seeking, budget conscious travelers are the majority. For those travelers, the concept of being escorted everywhere is contrary to the free-spirit travel style. Not to mention the dedicated 4WD Toyota Land cruiser, chauffeur, English speaking guide (the expense of hiring an English speaking guide is more than a non English speaking guide) and star-rated hotels are a burden to their pockets.

Combining foreigners in a cheap group tour seems like a solution. However regulation states that no foreign tourists can be combined with other Chinese tour groups or foreign tourists from another travel agency. Sounds complicated? It is. Small boutique travel agencies do not have the scale to organize foreign tourist groups. They do not have enough foreign customer base to form a group on its own. Because of the regulation that you can’t join them with another group from another agency, the daunting cost of traveling alone (well, not exactly alone because of driver and guide, but only one paying customer) often turns budget travelers away.