Bhutan Offers Duty-Free Gold to Offset Tourism Fee Impact
Photo Credit: Bhutan is now luring travelers with duty-free gold to visit the country. Pexels / Setu Chhaya
Skift Take
Bhutan is looking for the Midas touch for its tourism, quite literally. But will that make price-sensitive tourists disregard the otherwise high tourism fees?
Setting a new “gold standard” for travel, Bhutan is now offering duty-free gold to visitors, who may have been discouraged to visit the destination due to the high sustainable tourism fee.
However, certain terms and conditions must be met before travelers can avail the gold at duty-free rate, which is approximately $529 for 10 grams of 24 karat gold.
All tourists who pay the sustainable development fee can buy the duty-free gold, said Karma Lotey, CEO of Yangphel Adventure Travel, a travel company based in Bhutan.
“Guests would have to spend at least one night in a certified hotel to avail the special duty-free pricing and would need to pay for the gold in U.S. dollars,” noted Lotey. .
The move, according to many, is specially directed towards Indian tourists, who till 2020 had been granted free entry into Bhutan and are now required to shell out $15 per day, per person as sustainable development fee.
“Since the introduction of the sustainable development fee for Indians, we have seen a drop of around 50 percent of tourists from India compared to pre-pandemic levels,” said Lotey.
Over 73 percent of total arrivals to Bhutan in 2019 were from India. Of the 31
