Beijing, as the venue of the 29th Olympic Games, will receive 4.6 to 4.8 million visitors from overseas in 2008, a Chinese tourism official said in Lhasa on Tuesday.

 

The overseas visitors are expected to bring Beijing US$4.8 to 4.9 billion of tourism revenue, said Gu Xiaoyuan, deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Administration, at a forum held in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

 

During the period of the summer Olympics in 2008, the number of overseas audience and visitors to Beijing is estimated at 500,000 to 550,000, she said.

 

Currently, Beijing has 4,761 hotels which are equipped with a total of 572,500 beds, according to the official.

 

By the end of July, Beijing has received 2.113 million overseas visitors who spent at least one night in the city, up 7.1 percent compared with the corresponding period of last year, statistics with the tourism administration show.

 

While the figure stood at 3.629 million last year, up 15 percent year-on-year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2006)