Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has fuelled a mini-boom in India's Darjeeling region, where more than 110,000 Buddhists have gathered for the Kalachakra religious festival.
All hotel and guesthouse rooms have been snapped up by devotees thronging the hill resort in eastern India for a week of the Dalai Lama's sermons and teachings.
The Telegraph newspaper reported that locals with spare rooms in their homes were making a killing because of the influx.
'With devotees pouring in from Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim and other parts of India, there is still a huge demand but no rooms available for miles around,' said Darjeeling resident Subhash Brahim.
A spokesman for the Dalai Lama said he would deliver discourses on meditation, purification, and teach how to improve wisdom, fight ageing and attain enlightenment.
Scores of food stalls have mushroomed on pavements and vendors are doing a roaring trade in woollens and blankets. Tight security is in place, with 2,500 policemen in uniform and armed federal agents on round-the-clock vigil.