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The Government's policy
2003: Tourist arrivals increase
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Tourism in Bhutan
2003: Tourism is the second largest employer after the civil service
The 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 government's policy

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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