High value, low volume tourism: Is Bhutan’s old normal the world’s new normal?

While some places adopt Bhutan’s Gross Nation­al Hap­pi­ness, the King­dom’s tour­ism offi­cials would be happy for the world to emu­late its ‘high value, low volume’ tour­ism policy too. Dorji Dhradhul, dir­ect­or-gen­er­al of the Tour­ism Coun­cil of Bhutan, dis­cusses it in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

Lead­er­ship is all about decid­ing what to do and then doing it. The lead­er­ship of Bhutan, its suc­cess­ive mon­archs, have pres­ci­ently believed, embraced, and pur­sued the pro­mo­tion and real­isa­tion of the well-being and hap­pi­ness of every­one and everything in the coun­try, the world, and even beyond.

 “… when Bhutan opened to for­eign tour­ists in the 1970s, our lead­er­ship res­isted the tempta­tions to har­ness the quick for­tunes from mass tour­ism and instead was pres­ci­ent to for­mu­late a vis­ion­ary policy of High Value, Low Volume tourism …”

His Majesty The King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Bhutan, 2019

From the begin­ning of our tour­ism industry in the early 1970s, Bhutan prac­tised ‘high value, low volume’ (HVLV) tour­ism, which was in fact gif­ted by our great Fourth King. Tour­ism in Bhutan was foun­ded on the prin­ciple of hol­ist­ic sus­tain­ab­il­ity, which is envir­on­ment­ally, eco­lo­gic­ally, socially, cul­tur­ally, and eco­nom­ic­ally accept­able and viable. In short, the main idea is to give tour­ists a unique and exclus­ive exper­i­ence while at the same time pro­tect­ing Bhutan’s her­it­age, nature, and cul­ture for future generations.

HVLV pur­sues object­ives bey­ond rev­en­ue and receipts, thereby fore­go­ing the quick returns that can be received from mass tour­ism. HVLV chooses reg­u­lated and man­aged tour­ism over mass/over-tour­ism; qual­ity over quant­ity. HVLV pur­sues exclus­ive, immers­ive, less-is-more tourism. 

Features of Bhutan’s high value, low volume tourism

The policy of HVLV is oper­a­tion­al­ised through numer­ous prac­tices and reg­u­la­tions that go far bey­ond tourism. 

1) Bhutan’s tourism vision

The Tour­ism Policy of the King­dom of Bhutan 2020 aims to make Bhutan a green, sus­tain­able, inclus­ive, viable, and high-value tour­ism destination. 

The vis­ion per­tains to high value, low volume tour­ism wherein Bhutan man­ages tour­ism and tour­ism devel­op­ment based on the qual­ity of vis­it­a­tion, not the quant­ity of vis­it­ors. This qual­ity over quant­ity approach serves to enhance the travel exper­i­ence while sus­tain­ing the char­ac­ter of our place and max­im­ising tour­is­m’s bene­fit to loc­al communities.

Assist­ing the Roy­al Gov­ern­ment in achiev­ing this nation­al vis­ion is a non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tion, the Bhutan Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Soci­ety (BSTS). BSTS is rep­res­en­ted at the nation’s apex decision-mak­ing body for tourism.

2) Sustainable development fee (SDF) and minimum daily package rate (MDPR)

Reflect­ing the sus­tain­ab­il­ity object­ive of tour­ism pro­mo­tion and devel­op­ment, every tour­ist pays a Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Fee (SDF), which the Roy­al Gov­ern­ment rein­vests into the pre­ser­va­tion and con­ser­va­tion of nature and cul­ture. The present SDF is USD 65 per per­son per day.

All tours to Bhutan are pre-paid and pre-arranged. This requires advance pay­ment of the min­im­um pack­age tour cost, after which the tour is con­firmed with the issu­ance of a tour­ist visa. The min­im­um cost, known as the ‘min­im­um daily pack­age rate’ (MDPR), is pre­scribed by the Roy­al Gov­ern­ment. It is at present USD 250 per tour­ist per day, which includes the afore­men­tioned SDF. 

3) Minimum tourism service standards

All tours have to be arranged by a licensed Bhu­tanese tour oper­at­or. With the bal­ance of the MDPR (USD 185), the chosen licensed Bhu­tanese tour oper­at­or must provide the fol­low­ing min­im­um ser­vices to the tourist:

• Min­im­um three-star accom­mod­a­tion in a Gov­ern­ment-cer­ti­fied hotel or vil­lage homestay. (Tour­ists who trek must stay in des­ig­nated camp­sites mainly to con­trol the sense­less abuse of nature and the envir­on­ment, not­with­stand­ing the assur­ance of the safety of tourists.)
• All meals (break­fast, lunch, and dinner).
• Ground trans­port­a­tion with a private chauffeur.
• A licensed Eng­lish-speak­ing Bhu­tanese tour guide must accom­pany every tour­ist; to assist and guide the tour­ist as necessary. 

4) Carbon-neutrality, tree planting, organic farming, et cetera

Bhutan has pledged to remain a car­bon-neut­ral eco­nomy and has rolled out a series of meas­ures to achieve that, including: 

• Sub­sid­ising elec­tri­city in rur­al com­munit­ies so as to reduce wood burn­ing and oth­er dirti­er fuel sub­sti­tutes. A fixed quota of elec­tri­city is provided free to house­holds in rur­al areas.
• Tax-free imports of elec­tric cars.
• A ‘green tax’ on auto­mo­biles that use fossil fuels.

In addi­tion, Bhutan for Life is a multi-mil­lion dol­lar fund that has been set up to sup­port our com­mit­ment to fight glob­al cli­mate change through loc­al actions. These include pre­serving and pro­mot­ing biod­iversity, healthy eco­sys­tems (such as ban­ning single-use plastic bags), cli­mate resi­li­ence, and eco­nom­ic opportunity.

In 2015, 100 Bhu­tanese volun­teers set a new world record by plant­ing 49,672 trees in one hour. In 2016, tens of thou­sands turned up to help cel­eb­rate Prince Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck’s birth by plant­ing 108,000 tree saplings.

Food pro­duc­tion in Bhutan is nat­ur­al by default with a min­im­um use of chem­ic­al fer­til­izers and pesti­cides. Bhutan has set a tar­get to become 100% organ­ic. Gasa, Bhutan’s largest dis­trict in terms of land area, has been fully organ­ic for a decade. 

Moun­tain climb­ing high­er than 6,000 metres has been pro­hib­ited since 1994, both to pre­serve nature and to not dis­turb the deit­ies liv­ing on each moun­tain peak. Today, Bhutan has the highest unclimbed moun­tain in the world, Gangkar Phuensum, whose peak is 7,570 metres above sea level.

Tourism’s new normal could be high value, low volume

Today, as the world is grap­pling with cli­mate change and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, des­tin­a­tions are ser­i­ously search­ing for a new tour­ism mod­el that will ensure the sus­tain­ab­il­ity, health, and hap­pi­ness of moth­er Earth and man­kind. I am con­vinced that Bhutan’s HVLV tour­ism of the last half-cen­tury can be that new mod­el. In fact, some des­tin­a­tions have already expressed their appre­ci­ation for our high value, low volume tourism.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Bhu­tanese boys in tra­di­tion­al attire. Image © Dorji Dhradhul.

About the author

Dorji Dhradhul has been the Dir­ect­or-Gen­er­al of the Tour­ism Coun­cil of Bhutan (TCB) since Janu­ary 2019. Mr Dhradhul’s vis­ion is to take Bhutan to “the top of the world in tour­ism”. He hopes vis­it­ors’ exper­i­ences of Bhutan will help them “reflect on the import­ance of liv­ing in har­mony with nature” and become “cham­pi­ons of sus­tain­able and respons­ible tour­ism in all their oth­er jour­neys in the world”.  He is “a life­time sup­port­er” of Bhutan’s sus­tain­able tour­ism policy of ‘High Value Low Volume’.

Pri­or to the lead­ing the TCB, Dorji served as Dzong­da (Gov­ernor) of Gasa dis­trict for almost four years. He also worked in vari­ous capa­cit­ies in the fields of agri­cul­ture research, policy, and devel­op­ment, includ­ing as the found­ing Dir­ect­or of Bhutan’s Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture Mar­ket­ing and the found­ing Regis­trar of Cooperatives. 

Dorji has pub­lished a num­ber of art­icles on sub­jects of con­tem­por­ary rel­ev­ance in Bhutan’s news­pa­pers. And he has writ­ten a nov­el entitled Escapades: Awaken­ings.