The Overhyped Economy of Bhutan

Most countries really want to bring in tourists for the big infusion of money into the local economy. But Bhutan makes it incredibly expensive to visit, and bans all visitors from climbing the parts of the Himalayan mountains that are within their borders. Why? Do they just want to protect their culture from tourists (with the hotels, photo spots and trouble that comes with them)?

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[rileymiller]

I live in Western Australia and I have worked with many Bhutan workers at a laundry linen factory that supplied the hospital linen around our state. The workplace treatment and conditions have deteriorated over the last couple of years and are now very poor so many Aussies have ended up leaving, and more and more new Bhutan workers have kept coming on working and student visas to take their place. They are very hard working, polite, kind, gentle but also a timid and overall more introverted group who you can see are uneducated and so unfortunately are taken advantage of at this factory (I have just only left myself). I became friends with many of them and they become a lot more talkative once you established trust. They come here to work and make a living because all the money is here compared to their country. Still, they all love their king and country (to the point of being kinda weird) and hold very traditional, simplistic views. Oh and their generosity… they are the most generous people, especially with their food that I have ever witnessed. Overall they are a beautiful people but they certainly lack the extroversion and ability to speak up for oneself and create a splash and climbing the hierarchy compared to our Aussie culture. But I understand that because they are here on visas they are more vulnerable, particularly at our workplace

[harisadu]

The truth is that the Bhutanese youth are no longer satisfied by being the happiest country. They actually now want to make money.

[nilnil]

Point to be noted. Indians don't need to pay the exhorbitant amount of government fees to stay in Bhutan. Typically is much lower like around $15. Also India and Bhutan are really good friends with great diplomatic/cultural ties. Bhutan is breaktakingly beautiful with it's peaceful & serene landscape

[prameyprabhudesai]

One thing you have missed out. Bhutan’ over 50% government budget is financed by India as a grant and NOT a loan.

[kevincronk]

Bhutan is weird in a lot of ways. He mentioned that they only officially became a democracy in 2008 with the king still keeping a lot of powers, that was because the king wanted the country to be a democracy. The people want him to stay in power. Not many other countries have a leader who wants to get rid of their own power and a people who want that leader to keep it.

[tenzo_san]

The fact that Bhutan has small economy and still offers free education and free healthcare to all citizens is something to be proud of.

[PrashanthB-bilc]

When in comes to tourism in Bhutan, Indians, Maldivians and Bangladeshis are exempt from many of the rules.

Me as an Indian can enter Bhutan with no visa, travel on our own and explore with no mandatory tour guide, stay in cheaper airbnb or homestays. However, they do charge a daily charge, much cheaper compared to the standard charge for everyone else. Something like 15USD per day.

That too, they started charging the fees, when too many Indian tourists started visiting. Before that, it was completely free.

[hc]

I have been to Bhutan. It is a beautiful country and the people are lovely. It is a mountainous country but at the time I went (a few years ago) the roads were bad. I understand that they couldn’t build their own highways so India helped them. Sadly it seemed to me that that was a very slow and not very good job (nothing against India, I don’t know anything about the background). There was only one major road and no flights or railway linking the eastern part with the western part of the country. I came back feeling a little underwhelmed - the Bhutanese are a peaceful contented people, but the western hype about happiness is, to be honest, just another kind of manipulation. There is simply no such thing as paradise on earth, in my view.

[tokyo]

What he did not mention is Bhutan might be closed off to the rest of the world, but it is VERY open to India in all sectors. Indians are not required to pay to $200 a day tourism fee, so Bhutan gets thousands of Indian tourists each year. Also India manages a lot of internal ministries for Bhutan which include defence and foreign affairs. It is a sovereign country on paper, it is highly dependent on India for survival. China would have gobbled up Bhutan long ago had it not been for India, as was evident from the Doklam clashes.

[ThizOne]

As an Icelandic person, I wish that we would take up a lot of these ideas/regulations from Bhutan.
The mass tourism here is killing what Iceland is and also why people what to come visit.
It’s quickly pushing out and making it unaffordable for the actual citizens to be able to live here.
Plus we have one of the highest consumption of anti depressants in the world, so make of that what you will concerning how happy people in general are here 🤦🏼‍♂️

[Sunflowersarepretty]

Bhutan is a unique country. I don't think I'd ever be able to visit it but I actually like that they want to preserve their country's natural landscapes and culture. They're not materialistic and want to live a simple life. Although I don't know how they measure happiness but not chasing after money or selling your soul in pursuit of it or living anywhere away from polluted cities could make someone like me content.

[markscarupa]

I have spent time in Bhutan. The prices of lodging quoted in the video are over ten times more than what I paid. While the daily $200 surcharge is steep, once there, food and lodging were inexpensive.

[prateekojha]

My dream for Bhutan will be to develop without compromising on their values. We need a country like Bhutan in this world.

[dorianodet]

I mean, when you started a video with : "Bhutan geographical position mean its economy will never take up", it kind of make sense to focus on maintaining quality of life as much as possible.

[chris]

I don't want to romanticize rural poverty, but it does seem like being poor in a beautiful environment with clean water and air and a stable, tight knit community is not quite the same thing as being poor in an ugly, polluted slum with high social fragmentation and crime. Both are still poor, but if you're going to be poor anyway...

[sustainerofdivineprincipeal]

Lol never imagined seeing my country on this channel. Agree with all of the points. Nepotism is one of the biggest issue plaguing the country. As a result most youths and even government staff have become disillusioned with the country. Hence these days there is a mass exodus of people leaving the country for Australia. We are also paying the price for prioritizing GNH over GDP . Not to mention the country offers nothing special for the ridiculous tourist fee. Furthermore most Bhutanese are too scared to take a risk and only know how to copy others. Because of this there is very few individuals with unique business ideas. The government just cares only about taxing the business and filling up their pockets nothing more .

[NielMalan]

I guess it's normal to measure poverty in dollars, but I'm much more interested in the real effects of poverty, especially in how it reflects in health and education. For example, a poor country can have good health outcomes for not much money if it concentrates on primary health care.

Non-monetary indicators for poverty include infant mortality, life expectancy, and suicide rate.

[jabloko]

So essentially, Bhutan is the equivalent on a country level of the guy who wants to live off-grid, yet achieved this off-grid status by first relentlessly mining "the grid" for so much wealth that they can ignore it later in their lives.

[loveaodai]

Yes… Bhutan can be very expensive for travelers but not necessarily so. I made a trip there in 2018 from Saigon where I live. There are direct flights a few times a year with excursions including everything for four full days and four nights including four and five star hotels for about 2, 300 USD (was about 1, 600 USD in 2018). Not a solution for budget minded backpackers but nothing crazy expensive either considering the cost included/includes airfare, hotel, all meals and all tours including also the daily visa fee. And the country was absolutely fascinating and beautiful of scenery, architecture and national traditional dress with the level of spoken English being better than what one might expect. The solution to get a visa and reasonable cost is to find and work with a specialized tour company that can handle all from one of the cities that one of the Bhutan airlines fly from.

[todo]

This basically mirrors my response when I saw articles and stuff about Bhutan, they have a good thing going, but they can only maintain what they have by relying on other countries.

It's not a model that scales up well, or that can standd on it's own, like Singapore in a way.