A five-star hotel will be built at the entrance of Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon - regarded by some as the longest and deepest in the world, certainly one of the least accessible, and yet probably the most scenic in Tibet - mostly to attract conference business, according to official media.
The hotel would stand on a mountain in the remote town of Pai, providing 150 rooms for at least 300 guests at a construction cost of 100 million yuan (HK$114 million) and with minimum carbon dioxide emissions, Xinhua quoted Liu Jianyun, vice-president of Tibetan Tourism, as saying.
Liu said his company, based in Lhasa and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, had won the central government's approval to set up a world-class conference centre. An increasing number of demanding and prestigious guests found it impossible to stay in the beautiful but ecologically fragile and politically sensitive area of eastern Tibet. The only accommodation available at present was youth hostels and guest houses run by local Tibetans.
To create a different atmosphere, the hotel will be run by an overseas management team and become the first major facility in Tibet whose operations were entirely entrusted to foreigners.
The mainland spends more than 100 billion yuan on meetings every year. In the past, most meetings have been held by the government, but in recent years, more overseas companies and organisations have been choosing the mainland for their conferences - a tribute to the country's growing economy.
But though the canyon's scenery is certainly remarkable, the choice of location left Yang Yong, an explorer who was among the first adventurers to trek through the canyon in 1998, scratching his head.