Beijing, Dec 18. (PTI): China will launch the first five-star luxury tourist train with a foreign tie-up on the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the world's highest rail line, next year.

The train, the first of its kind on the newly-opened railway, will be operated by the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company in cooperation with foreign tourist agencies, officials said.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company is based in Xining, Capital of Qinghai in China's remote northwest.

The official said, the luxury train will be equipped with advanced equipment and will rival the star-rated hotels in terms of convenience and comfort, the state media reported.

The Qinghai-Tibet railway, the first to link Tibet to the rest of China, starts in Xining and ends in Lhasa, Capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. It was opened on July one.

Before the train service on the 1,956 km railway, tourists could only reach Tibet via air or highway.

Tibet has received more than 2.25 million visitors in the first 10 months of the year, an increase of 31.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to the latest statistics from the regional tourism bureau.

The huge influx of tourists has brought the region's tourism revenue to more than 2.4 billion yuan (about $300 million) in the said period, up 28.9 per cent year on year.

Officials with the bureau have attributed the surging of tourists to the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which they said has made the "Roof of the World" more accessible at a lesser cost.