The Bhutanese cabinet cleared the country’s first dedicated tourism policy, thus making the way for the government to actively promote tourism in the country throughout the year. The new regulations would allow authorities to devise plans for all regions, reported the national newspaper Kuensel.

The government plans to incentivize and promote tourism in the areas that currently see low tourist footfalls. With the deployment of services, capacity, and attractive packages, authorities now would be able to equally develop all regions with tourism potential.

For promoting the industry in a sustainable way, the policy has provisions of regulating the entry, and adopting a new pricing mechanism, and also applying the sustainable development fee among other things.

In the absence of policy directives, Bhutan’s tourism industry remained high-price oriented and failed to tap the volumetric potential. But with this, things are expected to turn around.

In 2019, 315,599 tourists visited the country, generating $225 million in revenue for the state. But in 2020 - the year mostly marred by the pandemic - it earned just $19 million with around 28,000 tourists visiting the country.

Despite almost a year of closure, international tourism hasn’t yet been opened by the Bhutanese government. The livelihood of 50,737 people in the country directly depends on tourism.