The sound and fury that has dominated the tourism scene for the past few months ended this week with the prime minister announcing that the daily tariff for tourists will be raised from US$ 200 to US$ 250 with effect from 2011.
When the government said it would see into tariff liberalization, tour operators and many others cried foul. Opposition Leader Tshering Tobgay wrote several entries in his popular blog adding weight behind the anti tariff liberalization voices.
The cabinet’s tariff decision published through an executive order on November 13 last year triggered an outcry, and the ambiguous nature of a certain part of the order created more confusions. The order said the government has advised relevant agencies to “Roll out of the integrated channel, price and supply policy that liberalizes the minimum package price and mandatory package via tour operator requirement…”
Gosh! Critics caught on the word liberalization and churned out apocalyptic theories of Bhutan being thrown open to backpackers and druggie tourists who would desecrate the peace of the country. Tour operators feared they have lost their money-making edge. Adding to the frenzy, a newspaper wrote that the government had decided then to keep US$ 65 as levy from a tourist and then leave the rest to tour operators to decide on the service provided.
At Wednesday’s meeting with the prime minister a guide association representative told they never understood what the government meant by liberalization. The concept was too unclear. The whole liberalization debate intensified with people interpreting it the way they wanted.
Worsening the liberalization debate, the presence of McKinsey and Company as a consultant for the accelerated socio-economic development program put the government in a tight spot. Reporters scrambled for the bread crumbs of information on what the agency is doing in Bhutan. No one was very lucky, and that bred speculations on what exactly the government was planning to do.
Similar to the ‘liberalization’ confusion, the government and the prime minister is again in the dock for asking Ratan Tata to ‘adopt’ Bhutan.
“A country like Bhutan would be happy to be adopted by Tata,” a press release from the government’s media cell quoted the prime minister as saying. Writing about that in his blog and opening up another debate the opposition leader took a dig at the media too.
“And to make certain that Ratan Tata did not miss the Government’s invitation for adoption, all our major newspapers – Kuensel and Bhutan Today and Bhutan Observer and Bhutan Times and Business Bhutan – carried the PM’s tempting offer, word for word,” he wrote.
At a time when the government is just out of the liberalization headache, it is caught in the adoption worry. Bloggers and anonymous forum writers are having a gala time dissecting the word in all possible ways.
Welcome democracy, everyone is talking.
Popularity: 20% [?]
