It was 6 p.m. on Monday, tourists made a beeline for Tancheng Plaza, the largest open-air dancing pool in Shangri-La, a well-known scenic spot in Yunnan Province, southwest China.

On reaching the plaza, tourists of different colors quickly formed into a circle around a lamppost and danced the Tibetan Bonfire Dance, called "Guozhuo" in Tibetan and " Guozhuang" in Mandarin, according to the rhythm of the music.

The happiest of all was Cering Zhoima, a local woman tour guide.

"Thank god, I finally had a tour group to work for after so many days," said the woman who is employed by Qingnan Airlines Travel Service. These days, Zhoima has been providing service to a group of more than 20 domestic and overseas tourists.

Shangri-La, capital of Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Diqing, sits in the junction of Yunnan, Sichuan provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region. It is famous for its breathtaking natural scenery described in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon."

Diqing has largely depended on tourism for development. The prefecture received 3.8 million tourists last year, including 400,000 foreigners.

Tourism, however, fell off a cliff in most of the Tibetan-inhabited areas and in Tibet as a result of riots in Lhasa and elsewhere from March 14 onwards.