A day trip to Base Camp? Everest to get new tourist centre, hotel and helipad

If you build it, they will come – or so the saying goes. But sometimes the burning question when it comes to tourists isn’t necessarily whether they will come – it’s whether they should even be there in the first place.

Next year, the Chinese authorities will begin construction on a hotel, museum and helipad – an ‘international mountaineering centre’ – in Gangkar, near the Tibetan Base Camp of Mount Everest. The aim of this 100 million yuan (£11.5 million) project is clear: to create a tourism attraction high on the slopes of the world’s highest mountain, 5,380 metres above sea level.

Trekking through the village of Tingri, near the southern frontier of Tibet CREDIT: GETTY

“There will also be a mountaineering museum; rental and repair centres for cars, motorbikes and bicycles; and restaurants and accommodation,” Nyima Tsering, the deputy director of the local sports bureau, told China Daily. “Guaranteeing such services would be a major lift for the region's mountaineering and outdoor sports industry.”