Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, dubbed "the roof of the world," hosted 915,945 tourists in the first 11 months of this year, up 8.3 percent over the same period of last year.

Information from the regional statistics bureau said that Tibet earned a record 1.01 billion yuan (about 122.55 million US dollars) from tourism from January to November, up 6.5 percent.

Overseas tourists made up 49,845, down by 61.6 percent, while domestic tourists totaled 866,100, a rise of 21 percent.

The rise of tourism service revenue was attributed to the increasing number of domestic tourists to this plateau region and the fact that domestic tourists stayed longer and spent more money during their stay in Tibet.

A sample survey shows that the domestic tourists spent 542.5 yuan (one US dollar equals 8.3 Chinese yuan) per person each day this year, 96.5 yuan more than the comparable figure for 2002.