Nyingchi is special for its ethnic groups, such as Tibetan, as well as Lhoba and Menba, which are among the smallest ethnic groups in China.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Last year during the peak season more than 10,000 visitors a day arrived in Nyingchi proportionately akin to 1 million people descending on a big city like Beijing each day.

Over the year, the local government says, it spent 1.32 billion yuan on more than 80 tourist projects, the likes of rural inns, restaurants, infrastructure and tourist villages. The aim: to ensure that the area's poorest people have a direct share in the spoils of an economic windfall that these projects can deliver.

The size of that windfall is evident in the billion yuan that the local government says tourism attracted year.

One of the attractions that helped pull in that money was the Basum Lake area. The lake, whose name means green water, is in the highlands, 90 kilometers west of Kongpo Gymdo county in Nyingchi. It covers more than four square kilometers and lies at an altitude of more than 3,700 meters.

Far from the hustle and bustle of towns and cities, Basum Lake is renowned for the bluish-green water that gives it its name and the lush vegetation in the surrounding land. Basum is also a holy lake for the Nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the oldest schools of Tibetan Buddhism.