Tibet Travel Permit situation (April 2012)

Hello, I am planning to travel to Tibet with my girlfriend on 11 April 2012 (flying from Chengdu) and today the travel agency that is making our Tibet permits informed us that for single travelers with different nationality passports (which is our case) cannot obtain a permit. Could someone update me and inform me about this matter? Many thanks.

There are several posts about this. Those who have posted will usually update details as they are released.

It is true, there were 175 permits rejected yesterday, some even under the same nationalities; now, only big groups over 10 people under the same nationality are easy to be approved.

Numbers of restrictions are still going on and there is no any concret notice how long the restrictions proceed. Some permits released for small private groups with 2 or 3 people but some are rejected, so the restrictions for small private groups with same nationalities are vary for different agencies, but the multi nationality groups are fully rejected for the time.

Please read the most recent post I wrote in the 2012 PERMIT SITUATION UPDATE The purpose of that sticky message is to keep all information like this in one place.

That said, the Chinese will restrict access to Tibet as long as it is feasible. Given recent newspaper articles - Washington Post about Tibetan monks and self immolation I would not expect this to change soon.

Ruth