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Bhutan's
Tourism |
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| 2007:
Tourist arrivals continue to increase |
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| 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. |
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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.
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| 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. |
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"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.
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| 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. |
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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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