Tourism industry gears for fall season
5 September 2005 - With the Thimphu tshechu, which starts on September 13, marking the onset of the autumn tourist season the industry is abuzz with travel agents, guides and hoteliers going on and about making final arrangements.
Of the 184 licensed tour operators in the country, some are heaving a sigh of relief having finally confirmed flight and hotel reservations while some are still making frantic last minute efforts.”Now it is almost time for the guides and the porters to get busy,” says Sangay, who looks relaxed sitting in his office in Thimphu. “The hotels have been booked, guides assigned and vehicles ready.”
The industry performed well so far this year and the autumn season is expected to see even more arrivals, tourism people say.
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Hotels in tourist destinations like Thimphu, Bumthang, Wangdue- phodrang and Paro are booked full and so are Druk Air flights. But there are tour operators pleading with hoteliers and Druk Air to make room for their clients. Riverview hotel in Thimphu has about five agents on the wait list for 30 rooms.In all, 61 hotels around the country are approved as fit for tourist accommodation. The number of rooms provided by these hotels adds up to 1,152.
Druk Air has been requested for additional flights. Tour operators said that even with the arrival of Druk Air’s two new Airbus aircraft last year, bookings are still difficult and that the growth of tourist hotels had not been much.
The Association of Bhutanese Tour Operators (ABTO) has proposed for four additional flights this season because there were operators who had their client’s waitlisted.
Last year there were over 100 cancellations some of it because tickets on Druk Air, the only airline to fly into Bhutan, could not be confirmed officials of the tourism department said.
According to Druk Air officials, they are studying the possibility of operating additional flights. “It should be viable,” said the manager of Druk Air, Namgay Wangchuk. “There should be enough people,” he said, adding that the flight schedule was “quite tight”.
Tour operators have however learned to plan way in advance and take on manageable numbers.
Etho Metho Tours and Travels has fixed a ceiling of 300 tourists for a month in the peak season because beyond that was not manageable. “We tell our clients about the problem and advise them to come in at a later period of time,” said the agency’s general manager, Sangay Wangchuk.
Palden Tshewang, has not promoted the season’s September month because competing with “bigger agencies” was tough. “Since they bring in more business the hotels give them priority,” he said.
October, despite the stiff competition, is the month most promoted by tour operators and their agents outside the country. “In October tourists can see the festivals and also trek because the weather gets better and the campsites are dry,” said a tour operator.
This season, according to tourism department’s data, approximately 1,201 and 140 tourists are expected to visit the country in September and October. The latter month’s bookings are still coming in said tourism officials.
While September month brings in mostly cultural tourists, October and November brings in trekkers.
The international tourism monitor produced by the tourism department states that the average length of stay of tourists was approximately eight days.
A tourism consultant working with the tourism department, Martin Zeppezauer, said Bhutan would continue receiving increasing number of tourists in the years to come but there was a need to diversify products.
There was also a need to spread the tourism season, improve and increase infrastructure and a need to reach the rural areas so that rural people would also benefit. These elements, he said, would to be reflected in the tourism master plan.
Meanwhile, some tour operators have begun working for the spring season in March next year.
Source: Kuenselonline.com