The Tourism Council of Bhutan (TCB) will recommend visa issuance to tourists only after necessary conditions like hotels where tourists will stay, tourist’s health insurance, itinerary, tour guide and transport arrangements are confirmed.
According to Bhutanese news website, TCB’s director general, Dorji Dhradhul, talked about the conditions that are necessary to ensure a tourist having a good experience as required by the tourism policy.
“All tourists come with high expectations and COVID increased the expectations on health and hygiene even higher,” he said.
A press release from the Prime Minister’s office on March 12 stated that starting from April 25, the quarantine period for international travelers who are fully vaccinated and with RT-PCR negative certificate would be reduced to five days. Those who are unvaccinated will have to undergo quarantine for 10 days.
Dhradhul said that the decision was a progressive move from complete closure of 21 days to 14 days and to 10 and five days. “This would naturally take the country to zero quarantine day,” he explained.
TCB has already developed a standard operating procedure on clean and safe services such as hotels and designated quarantine facilities for tourists to open up.
Except for the quarantine services, the tourists wouldn’t be charged with the sustainable development fee and the minimum daily wage rate during the quarantine period of 5 and 10 days.
Despite the decreased number of quarantine period and waived off SDF, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Bhutan (HRAB) chairman, Sonam Wangchuk, said that number of tourists entry would be minimal due to the quarantine period.
Chairman Wangchuk said that as of now, the relevant stakeholders were ready to open for tourists as the stakeholders had never been ripped of what they had already been providing prior to the pandemic.
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