Starting July 23, travel agencies in Beijing will suspend Tibet trips by train because the railway department will stop providing them train tickets to the region.

Last Friday, the railway department gathered major travel agencies in Beijing, including China International Travel Service, China Travel Service, China Youth Travel Service, China Travel Service (Hong Kong) and BTG Travel, for a meeting.

The companies were told that due to the shortage of train tickets for the train from Beijing to Lhasa, the department will stop providing tickets to these travel agencies and has asked them to wait for further notice as to when to resume ticket sales.

Tian Ling, general manager of the domestic travel department of CYTS, says that at present, there are 7 travel agencies in Beijing that can get tickets to Tibet directly from the Ministry of Railway, but they have to book and fetch the tickets 10 days in advance, and each of them can only get 20 sleeper tickets.

Travel agencies predict that they may resume the trips to Tibet as early as September.