Of MICE and footfalls

Looking for a venue to hold your next meeting or conference? Why not choose Bhutan? 

The Himalayan kingdom’s pristine natural environment and tranquil atmosphere offer the ideal ambiance to rejuvenate and for meaningful and thoughtful discussions. 

All this can happen without having to pay the daily tax or sustainable development fee (SDF), which is USD 100 a night and INR 1,200 for visitors from India. 

Bhutan is promoting itself as a destination for MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) events by offering waivers on the SDF to hasten the recovery of its pandemic-battered tourism sector. 

The most recent proposal is to offer daily tax waivers for six nights seven days, not including arrival and travel dates, up from four nights five days announced in January, to participants of MICE events that qualify for the waiver. 

Previously applicable only to government meetings and events, the SDF waiver now covers all eligible tourism-related events organized by tour operators and hoteliers. The event must be organized by a certified Bhutanese tour operator or hotel and must have a minimum of seven participants. The waiver will apply only to participants and not their dependents. 

Requests for MICE SDF waivers must be made at least a month in advance, and a summary of the event, including the outcomes and photographs, must be submitted to the Department of Tourism a month after participants have departed. Since reopening borders in September 2022, after a two-and-a-half-year shutdown, tourism has struggled to recover partly because the SDF was hiked to USD 200 a night from USD 65 a night. A daily tax of INR 1,200 (USD 15) for visitors from India was also implemented. 

Last September, the government offered a 50 percent discount on the SDF, reducing the daily tax to USD 100 a day. The daily tax for Indian visitors remains unchanged. While visitor numbers are gradually picking up with more than 25,000 visitors in the first three months of 2024, it is still below the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, which saw more than 300,000 visitors with two-thirds from India. Then, visitors from the region were not levied any tax, and dollar-paying tourists paid an SDF of USD 65 a night. 

By promoting the MICE market, the government hopes to push footfalls and help out the hotel industry repay loans that have been deferred until June this year. Globally, the MICE market is one of the highest revenue contributors to the tourism industry. Its contribution is projected to reach USD 1.4 trillion next year.