Foreign tourists take photos at the Potala Palace Square in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Tibet hosted 1.8 million tourists in the first half of this year, up 20.3 percent from a year earlier, the regional tourism administration said yesterday. The "roof of the world" received 78,000 international tourists in the period, up an annual 67 percent. The region in southwest China generated 1.39 billion yuan (US$204 million) in tourism revenue in the first six months, growing 23.6 percent year on year. The tourism administration attributed the growth in visitor arrivals to efforts to promote tourism in winter, the slack season for visits to the plateau.