Bhutan reopens borders to international tourists after 2 years, Indian visitors to pay Rs. 1,200 per day fee
Guwahati/IBNS: After shutting its doors to international tourists for two and a half years owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, Bhutan re-opened its borders on Friday.
The reopening has come with a revised tourism levy, called the Sustainable Development Fee.
With the reopening of the borders, Bhutan raised its Sustainable Development Fee to $200 per visitor per night from the $65 it had been charging foreign tourists for the last three decades.
Indians were not charged anything before the pandemic began, but as per the new rules, they now have to pay a sum of Rs1200.
However, the revised fee for Indian tourists was never implemented.
In March 2020, Bhutan shut its borders to visitors, which is a major source of income for the country, after detecting its first case of COVID-19.
The Himalayan Kingdom of fewer than 800,000 people has reported a little over 61,000 infections and only 21 deaths. However, its economy has suffered in the last two years, causing a spike in poverty.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.