Bhutan a Low Carbon Destination

 

One of the objectives of the Bhutan Low Carbon Tourism Project, among others, is to persuade sustainable tourism development and sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in tourism business through development of Low Carbon Tourism products and packages.

Over the past three years all efforts have been made to survey, gather comprehensive data from the tourism industry, analyse these data, generate reports (which will be shared with the industry) and create a benchmark for the country in terms of its carbon emission and carbon footprint. This is undertaken to qualify some of the existing as well as new products and services, that need to be carefully packaged, as Low Carbon tourism products and packages.

Parallel to these actions, the project also embarked on building capacity of the stakeholders and key players in the industry to carry forward the sustainable tourism development objective and inculcate the practice of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in their operations.

The low carbon products and services that require to be packaged may not be totally new, given the limited pool of possible products and resources to build on, but will be appropriately packaged to make the elements of carbon emission and responsible tourism inclusive and appealing to the clients. The packages will be designed to also encourage reduction in the carbon footprint and allow opportunities for guests as well as the industry to take part in the mitigation measures directly or indirectly through their participation or taking these packages.

The Project has launched these Low Carbon tourism packages in the ITB Trade and Tourism Fair in Berlin, Germany 4th – 8th March 2015, in collaboration with the Tourism Council of Bhutan as part of the Visit Bhutan Year promotion.