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2007: Tourist arrivals continue to increase
Tourists visiting Bhutan continue to increase but those coming for the Paro tshechu have significantly dropped this year say tourism officials.From January till March 2007 so far, about 3,706 tourists visited the country compared with about 2,362 tourists during the same months last year.

Tourists visiting Bhutan continue to increase but those coming for the Paro tshechu have significantly dropped this year say tourism officials.

From January 2007 till March 2007 so far, about 3,706 tourists visited the country compared with about 2,362 tourists during the same months last year.

This year, March alone accounted for about 2,449 tourists of which 1,755 came to witness the Paro tshechu, which begins on March 29.

Last year more than 2,500 tourists came to witness the Paro tshechu in April 2007 out of about 3,393 who visited the country that month.

But the increasing number of tourists was a major challenge because hotel rooms and seats on Drukair were limited.

Thinley W Dorji of Bhutan Tourism Corporation Limited, which is bringing about 500 tourists for the Paro tshechu said that finding accommodation for their tourists was the biggest glitch, especially when there were almost 200 tour operators in the country.

"A lot of tourists are unable to come to the country because of the accommodation problem," said Thinley W Dorji, adding that the present infrastructure was limited and those that were being built were not coming up fast enough. "Sometimes our clients have to put up in substandard hotels," he said.

Standard hotels like the Druk in Thimphu had all its 52 rooms booked since March 23.

According to its senior manager, Dilu Giri, about 70 to 80 tour operators had requested for rooms for the Paro tshechu, which were divided among the top ten tour companies.

Getting Drukair tickets, Yangphel's managing director, Karma Lotey said, was another problem.

"Druk Air should anticipate more tourists during festivals and peak seasons and introduce additional flights way in advance so that tour operators could bring in more tourists," Karma Lotey said.

Druk Air's commercial manager, Tshering Penjor, explained that every additional flight was planned and that increasing the flight frequency was commercially not viable for the corporation.

He said that although tourists filled in the seats of the additional flights while flying into the country, the planes literally flew out empty.

"We have to think about all the 114 seats on the plane," Tshering Penjor told Kuensel adding that tour operators normally planned their clients' flight schedule a day prior to the festivals and a day after it. "They should consider planning their tourists' flight coinciding with our normal schedule."

Deepak Tamang of Raven tours and treks who has been in the business for only about a year said that getting air tickets was more difficult for new tour operators.

"Unlike the established companies we don't have agents abroad to market our packages and confirm the number of tourists that would visit," said Deepak Tamang. "I bring in only a fixed number of tourists whose accommodations have been assured," said Deepak Tamang, who is expecting to bring about 15 tourists this season and about 100 for the whole year.

Another newcomer in the business, Dorji, who runs the Golden Temple Tours and Treks prefers to bring in tourists during the lean season.

"That is the only time most good hotel rooms are easily available and getting air tickets is not a problem," said Dorji, who brought in about six tourists in 2006.

Contributed by Samten Wangchuk, KUENSEL, Bhutan's national newspaper, 2007
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