Bhutan lowers daily fee for tourists

As part of measures aimed at attracting more visitors and speeding up the recovery of the tourism sector after the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese authorities have decided to reduce the daily fee charged to tourists by 100 dollars. It was officially announced that the funds will be used to offset the carbon dioxide emissions caused by travelers. At the same time, the "sustainability fee" was increased from 65 dollars per day to 200 dollars after the Covid-19 related restrictions were lifted last September. The Bhutanese government confirmed that the new fee of 100 dollars per day will come into effect in September and will be valid for four years.

"This is due to the important role of the tourism sector in creating jobs, earning foreign exchange ... and in boosting overall economic growth," Bhutanese government officials said.

"We expect the number of travelers to reach around 100,000 by 2023 and most of them will be from India. Our target is to regain the 2019-2020 level by 2025," Bhutan Tourism Authority Director General Dorji Dhradhul said in an interview. The government estimates that it will take about three years to bring tourism back to pre-pandemic levels, i.e. to attract 300,000 tourists per year. By 2019-2020, the tourism industry accounted for almost five percent of Bhutan's gross domestic product. "In a way, we started from scratch last year .... In 50 years of tourism, we attracted 315,000 tourists in 2019," he said.

The Bhutanese government has simplified the rules on the length of stay and fees for tourists, but the expected increase in tourist numbers has not materialized.

In addition, Dhradhul noted that more than 56,000 tourists have visited Bhutan since the beginning of January, but nearly 42,000 of them are Indian nationals who require only 1,200 Indian rupees (US$14.5) per day. About 50,000 Bhutanese are employed in the tourism industry, and in the three years before the pandemic, they earned about 84 million dollars in foreign exchange annually. However, the Bhutanese authorities have limited access to international flights and mainly operate their own airline.

The director general of the Bhutan Tourism Board said it could take some time for the industry to recover after the tourism sector was closed for much of the 2.5 years and domestic travel was restricted.