Comments on: PRESS RELEASE

By: 10000eyes

10000eyes — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:52:40 +0000

OL
do you read all the comments made by the blogger…or you just glance on it? just want to know…

By: Karma 1

Karma 1 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:10:53 +0000

Truth: You keep mentioning about how our K3 opened the doors of Bhutan to the outside world, as though whatever we have achieved so far automatically happened just because we opened our doors to the outside world. K3 did what he did out of necessity but with a lot of “CAUTION” in the long term interest of our national security. If it wasn’t for the farsighted and selfless vision of our enlightened Kings, Bhutan could have been another Sikkim or another Tibet. I think whatever success we have achieved so far is because of our K3 and K4’s “Cautious,” thoughtful, and long term development policies. It wasn’t based on McKinsey’s radical “here and now” short sighted unsustainable development strategy.

Anyway, here’s the most important thing. As the government seems to have already made up their mind before even consulting the stakeholders, I sincerely hope that you are right. Even though most people in this forum don’t agree with you, I respect your passion in arguing your point of view. And I hope you have a selfless reason for that and that you are not irresponsibly arguing just for the fun of it. I hope you are being responsible and sincere, and that your arguments are based on facts and first-hand knowledge, and that you know things that we do not know and see. I hope you are right 500% and more. That you understand that so many people’s livelihood and one of our nation’s most important source of income is at stake, if we go wrong.

By: Thinlay

Thinlay — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:41:24 +0000

I support several good policy initiatives of the present Government, but the policy on increasing tourist number by reducing tariff, and developing separate tourist centers in different parts of the country is one that i totally disagree because:

1. Bhutan is basically an agarian country where majority are engaged in small scale self sustaining farming. This system is beautiful, sustainable, less polluting, environmentally friendly, and is resilent against any regional or international crisis. Allowing mass inflow of foreigners will spoil these fundamentally and ecologically sound system we presently have.

2. Bhutan has several beautiful temples, monasteries and Dzongs. These are places for worship, reverence and are symbols of our enduring culture and religious institutions. Allowing uncontrolled number 0f tourists to these sacred places will definitly have adverse impact. It will dilute the importance and pollute these very important heritage sites. we should only allow tourists who strongly beleive in the Mahayana Buddhist culture to visit these places or even develop some meditation centers where interested visitors can stay for sometime for meditation.

3. Mass tourism will inevitably lead to cheap prostitution of culture, and some vulnerable sections of our society will even resort to selling their flesh for cheap tourist dollar. Those cheap tourists will be source for deadly human diseases such as AIDS, TB, and other STDs.

4. Government giving more importance to tourism will divert the minds of youth to cheap, less intellectually demanding jobs in hotels, spars and bars. In other words, Bhutanese youth will aspire for easy and cheap profession.

Add more???

By: truth

truth — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:47:52 +0000

If we cannot compare us to Costa Rica and Hawaii, we can’t compare to Nepal either. Nepal does not really have a legitimate government and the country is one of the most corrupted country in the world not to mention that they have been battling Maoist forever.
Just like Bhutan has been example for many others countries in the world due to our Kings, I see why we cannot do that. We can be leaders of good policy instead of fearing it might turn into another Nepal.
As I said earlier if out Third King feared that opening our country to the world would degrade our culture and traditions, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.
Besides we can still control visa application procedures and get royalty.

By: chhophyel

chhophyel — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:28:38 +0000

I agree with you Karma 1 in regards to mass tourism, I will add though that there is no such thing as automated tourist, everything accounts due to sweat equity. I also thought it was a slap on the face for many of us who oppose the prosposed idea after reading the kuenselonline article ‘Tourism policy already happening’. Why distraction if they alrady decide on doing something redicule as the current idea. I don’t understand why we need an outside firm, what do they care about Bhutanese sentiments, they are business oriented firms and more $$$ they can get better it is for them. The ‘who cares’approach from the government and the way everything is so secretive will do more damage than any good for the ruling party. Come election time, someone like me will vote for any parties NOT DPT. Also, the 26 million allocation fund for marketing Bhutan, I won’t be surprise to see some ugly looking billboards in some major cities and passing out flyers in some street corners. Considering the ruling party’s interest with outside firms and what we are seeing so far, I highly doubt that they’d do any concept based marketing, and may opt for some cliché promotions.

By: Karma 1

Karma 1 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:44:51 +0000

Opening up the country to mass tourism will only kill the industry in the long run. And you cannot blindly compare Bhutan to Costa Rica, Hawaii, etc.. We operate in totally different conditions. People visit Bhutan for totally different reason vis-à-vis Costa Rica.

The only country we can reasonably compare to is Nepal, even though it is bigger than Bhutan in both size and population. And now look at what “Mass Tourism” has done to that country in the long run. Do you think people in Nepal are living better lives because of opening up their country to mass tourism?

You are right; no tourists will come to Bhutan to chop down our trees and to dump their garbage or to force the monks to wear jeans. But you never know what kind of influence some greedy and irresponsible tourists could bring to our people and our politicians. Just look at how McKinsey is dangerously influencing our policy makers. McKinsey has no long term interest in the future well being of this country.

By: Gala

Gala — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:46:36 +0000

I will not be surprised if foreigners visit our country taking us for some primitive objects or some animals in a zoo. Which are all the countries that are rich in culture and others poor? The tourists will not visit our country to chop down our trees, not even come with garbage to litter around, nor will they force monks in the monastries to come in jeans. Costa Rica is one country rich in ecology and biodiversity, people in there are one of the happiest and rely heavily on tourism. About 1/3rd of people in small country like Singapore is tourists any time of the year. They have high income per capita and they are happy people too. Lets give ourselves a chance to live better lives too by opening up.

By: Lily Wangchhuk

Lily Wangchhuk — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:00:13 +0000

Been out of the country for a while and missed all the recent discussions on the tariff liberalization. But thank you Lyonpo for taking up this very important issue on tariff liberalization with the government. I am in full agreement with you and many others who have expressed concerns on the adverse impact of such short-sighted policy recommended by some foreign consultant who has neither engaged in stakeholder consultation or unaware of situation in our country. We place so much trust in foreign expertise when we have adequate expertise in our country. Why do we need a foreign consultant to tell us what to do which is in direct contravention with the visionary policies of our monarchs for which we have won much appreciation! The list of negative impact is long and I hope the pros and cons will be carefully weighed before consideration of such an option!

By: Tashel Laglenpa

Tashel Laglenpa — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:01:51 +0000

Wow, Its great to learn so many view points. Let me give you a true scenario of the tourism industry in Bhutan.
1. Yes, we have a handful of big tour companies that take the major chunk of the business. This had been possible because they were started by those office bearers and staff of erstwhile BTC(RGOB undertaking)and they had the right link to all the tour agents abroad. However of lately we the small tour operators(new comers to this business) have managed to compete in terms of services and a lot of agents were dislodged from these bigger companies and have joined the smaller companies. In fact there had been movement of agents back and forth for several reasons(accommodations,food, cars, guides,etc). But this trend was more or less killed by undercutting of tariff by some companies which still remain unchecked. Have you heard of TCB penalizing any tour company despite rampant undercutting practices? If anybody wants competition in this business, TCB would have to make sure that there is no undercutting. I would appreciate it if Mackisy could come up with a software system that could curve undercutting. Without a systematic monitoring, no human officials can penalize the defaulters because, by virtue of being in a small society we are all related either through friendship, blood or marriage. Ultimately, we all become corrupt.

2. I think our government taking away $ 65 from the tariff is a fair deal as this had been the case since long ago. I personally wouldn’t mind even if the government raised the tariff. It will be even more attractive for the visitors.

3.In regard to Tour operators making easy money in the present system, It is not justified. Just do your simple calculations; After deducting the royalty we are left with Just $ 135 from which we have to meet the expenses for accommodation ($55), food($21), transport ($32), guides($21), tds ($2.7) etc and there are other unforeseen expenses such as gifts, treats etc. So, approximately $ 132 is spent on the services of the visitors and we may be left with just $ 3 per person per night and this will have to be spent on administrative costs such as rent, salary, utility bills and profits. So, I don’t think we make much money, particularly if the group sizes are small. Therefore, I also disagree with the writing off of the surcharge of $ 40 per person for individual travelers. This would help us a lot even if the government takes away 20% of it.

5. Liberalized tariff would attract all our fellow citizens into tourism sector and that would be like putting all our eggs in one basket.

6. I can understand our govt. needs money and Tourism sector is looked upon as the resource but I don’t think liberalization is the solution. Rather increasing the tariff and royalty, safe guarding tour operator’s share of profits by monitoring undercutting practices, would eventually help our financial status.

7. There is no need for our visitors to stay in 3 star hotels. Those who prefer luxury can go into high end hotels by paying over and above the normal tariff.
Actually they do not mind experiencing a night or two in various farm houses. But it is important to inform them in advance of what to expect.

Lets hope and wish Liberalization of tariff does take effect.

By: guardian

guardian — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:05:40 +0000

I stand fully behind the governments decision to liberalize the tourist tariff. In a democracy what is required is a level playing field which the DPT government is providing in this case. Also, like someone said Bhutan needs to be treated as a normal place instead of some museum piece. So we need to allow more normal people to come and enjoy our culture and traditions instead of only rich people. I also find it strange when the OL says that he is not sure how this new policy will guarantee the creation of more jobs. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that with this deregulation in the tariff, more visitors will come which will obviously translate into more jobs, that too across a wider cross section of our society.

In regard to the fear that social problems may arrive with a greater number of visitor arrivals, in all probability it just may happen that our bad habits may actually influence them instead. The message is that we get our house in order before accusing others of bringing social problems into our country.

As for people who equate tourist tariff liberalization with GNH, they all just want to sound politically correct. My take is that this plicy will actually contribute to GNH.