| Tourism
Industry in Bhutan |
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Bhutan Tourism |
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Bhutan Information |
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2003: Tourism is the second largest employer after the civil service
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industry saw the largest arrivals in 2000 with 7,559 tourists visiting
Bhutan The USA, the UK, Japan and Germany, make up 65 percent of Bhutan's
visitors. Between 1991 and 2002, the industry earned US $ 75.6 million
of which US $ 27.2 million went to government coffers as royalty. |
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The
department has a hoard of plans and strategies aimed at tackling these
long festering issues. It has been conducting numerous interim trainings
like guides, food and beverages, front-office skills and housekeeping trainings
for over 100 people in the last one year. Different valleys will offer
different products. For example, Bumthang will represent the heart of Bhutanese
culture, Trashiyangtse eco-tourism and Thimphu a modern city and the seat
of government. "If the packages are identical in all valleys the tours
will not be prolonged since the period of stay is much more important than
number of arrivals."
DoT
will also establish a hotel and tourism management training institute offering
degree courses in tour management. The institute will train manpower for
jobs outside, have linkages with popular institutes in Europe and the region
and will have visiting professors training the people. For this the department
has already linked up with the Austrian government for assistance. The
old Motithang hotel will be converted into the institute. The department
is in the process of developing a tourism policy and guidelines and legal
framework for tourism in Bhutan. "All this will culminate into a master
plan which will be ready for implementation by the second half of 2004,"
the DOT's director said.
According
to the director, the department was also looking for ways to tackle undercutting
which is rampant among the tour operators today. "Undercutting greatly
affects the country's image,"the director said. "The undercutters compromise
the services for more profits."
The
first step in tackling undercutting is by improving the quality of services.
Punishing the undercutters will be ineffective because "they will find
another way to do it", said the director. "The government thinks that we
are not doing enough promotional and marketing stuff like countries such
as Malaysia do,"Lhatu wangchuk said. "That is because we don't have carrying
capacity of the infrastructure and society in Bhutan to carry out mass
promotion."
All
in all, all these moves are expected to bring in 15,000 tourists annually
bringing a gross revenue of over US $ 20 million a year by the end of the
Ninth Plan. "This is not just a target,"the director said. "We can have
15,000 tourists even right now. But we don't want to do that because it
will not be sustainable. We will be just another Nepal."
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| Tourist
arrivals increase in the first half of 2003 |
Despite
the Iraq war and the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), tourist
arrivals to Bhutan in the first half of the year shot up by almost 22 percent
compared to the same period in 2002 according to the department of tourism
(DoT). A total of 2,737 tourist visited Bhutan from January to June 2003
up from 2,244 in the same period last year. April saw the highest with
1,219 followed by 654 in March, 397 in May, 192 in January, 177 in June
and 98 in February.
Number
of arrivals from: January to June for 2003
Etho
Metho Tours brought in 379 visitors, Bhutan Tourism Corporation Limited
252, International Tours 224, Yangphel Tours 134, and Tashi Tours 113.
Of the 81 registered tour companies, seven brought in two visitors each,
six one each, and 15 did not have any visitors at all. The period also
saw the highest cancellations, 280 in all, mostly spurred by fear of SARS,
equal to about US $ 350,000 in revenue. Many arrivals were postponed."We
were affected less by the war in Iraq but more by SARS,"said DoT director
Lhatu Wangchuk. Still, arrivals till June were one of the highest in the
recent years.
| This
article was contributed by KUENSEL, Bhutan's National Newspaper 2003 |
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