As hand-picked spectators cheered the Olympic flame through the city in a seemingly trouble-free and tightly-controlled torch relay on Saturday, local businesses complained of slow trade since the riots in March.

"There are not many customers at the moment, mostly local people and virtually no tourists," an employee at the Tibet International Grand Hotel told AFP.

"All the sites have been reopened, it's just that no one is coming. For business to get better, I think we must wait until social stability is totally back to normal."

Beijing barred all tourists from going to Tibet after a massive crackdown on violence that erupted in Lhasa on March 14, and then spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations.

Chinese tour groups have now been allowed back but foreign visitors are still banned, although Tibet's vice chairman has said the Himalayan region will soon open up to them.

"I think the day when Tibet fully opens up to tourism is not far away," the Xinhua news agency quoted Palma Trily as saying.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died in a clampdown on riots that began four days after monks led peaceful protests in Lhasa to mark a 1959 uprising.

China has reported killing one Tibetan "insurgent" and says "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths.

The ban on tourism has caused difficulties for many businesses in Lhasa, despite the government allowing tour groups from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan back in from the beginning of May.

The Lhasa Hotel, one of the city's top establishments, temporarily laid off more than three-quarters of its staff after the riots, the state-run Tibet Daily said.

Revenue from tourism contributed more than 14 percent of Tibet's gross domestic product in 2007, and at 668 million dollars was up 75 percent year-on-year, official figures show.

The head of the regional tourism administration, Wang Songping, predicted confidently early this year that visitors to Tibet would hit five million in 2008, with revenues soaring by 24 percent.

But since the end of April, when mainland Chinese were allowed back in, just 120,000 people have visited the Himalayan region.

An employee at one of the shops in front of the Jokhang Temple -- the first Buddhist temple in Tibet and a focal point for the unrest -- said business was now much worse than before the riots.

"Before the violence, you would have seen a crowd of tourists around here, but now there are just a few, and mostly locals," he said.

Businesses in other parts of China were also affected as tour operators that focus on the popular Himalayan region and surrounding areas were largely unable to organise trips there.

Robin Irvine, operations manager at Electric Pagoda, a tour operator in China that organises trips to Tibet, said he doubted the Himalayan region would open to foreign tourists before the Paralympic Games in September.

"While the world's television is on China during the Olympics, my guess is it wouldn't make sense to let any foreigners in," he said.

Irvine said the closure of Tibet and other areas since the riots had hit the company financially, compounded by the earthquake that hit southwest Sichuan province on May 12 and killed nearly 70,000 people.

"We're making ends meet, but this was the time when we wanted to make hay of it because this was a big year with the Olympics. Financially it's been tough but hopefully it will be better next year."

earlier related report
China releases 1,157 involved in Tibet unrest: Xinhua China has released a total of 1,157 people who were involved in riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March, the official Xinhua news agency reported Friday, quoting a senior Tibetan official.

They had been detained for minor offences connected with the unrest, Tibet vice chairman Palma Trily told a press conference in Lhasa.

The announcement came on the eve of a shortened one-day Tibetan leg of the Olympic torch relay.

Palma Trily also said courts in Tibet had Thursday and Friday handed down "punishments" to 12 people involved in the unrest, Xinhua reported.

Another 116 people were in custody awaiting trial, he said.

The brief report did not announce what sentences they received but the official said a total of 42 people had now been punished over the unrest.

Authorities in April jailed 30 people for between three years and life for arson, robbery, "gathering to assault state organs" and other crimes.

He said a total of 1,315 people had been arrested or turned themselves after the riots.

Amnesty International welcomed the news of the releases, which came a day after it urged China to reveal what happened to those detained.

"We are encouraged by the news of the release of 1,157 people and we look forward to receiving information about the trials of the 116 people in custody announced by the Tibetan authorities," the group said in a statement.

Peaceful protests that began on March 10 in Lhasa to mark the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against China's rule of Tibet escalated into widespread violence across the city on March 14 and spilled over into other parts of China inhabited by Tibetans.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died in the subsequent government crackdown.

China has reported killing one Tibetan "insurgent" and says "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths.

The Tibet issue was one of the major rallying cries for protesters who dogged the Olympic torch's month-long global journey before it came to China for the home run ahead of the August Games.

Pro-Tibet activists as well as human rights and press freedom groups staged huge demonstrations in London, Paris and San Francisco, as well as smaller rallies in Australia, India and elsewhere.

The flame's one-day stop in Tibet on Saturday is one of the most sensitive of the domestic route, which runs for thousands of miles over three months through every province and region of China.

China accuses Tibetans of targeting the Olympics following the crackdown in Lhasa, though the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Beijing Games.

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