Attracting tourists year-round into Bhutan

Tourism in Bhutan is seasonal and getting tourists to visit the country throughout the year has always been a big challenge for the tour operators.

The challenge has been accepted and people in the tourism business jointly are finding a way to flatten seasonality so that the flow of tourist will remain throughout the year.

Last week officials from the Tourism Council of Bhutan (TCB), Hotel Association of Bhutan, tour operators, Druk Air official and other consultants got together and discuss how this issue could be addressed.

They talked about the new products which could be introduced for the tourist and the additional services which could be provided.

According to TCB they have already introduced a few festivals such as Takin festival and Haa festival to attract tourist, which according to them has not been very successful because the tour operators are not offering these in their packages.

One of the products the group discussed about was starting meditation and monastic retreats.

TCB said that tour operators can create their own attractive packages or use packages developed by their experts, which would be marketed by TCB as well as individual tour operators.

One of the tour operator said that the biggest challenge to flatten seasonality is infrastructure.