What Is A Better Choice for Bhutan?

Tourism is a business that both impacts and benefits the whole spectrum of Bhutanese society. Thus, having kept it closed for so long because of the COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely costly for the government and the country. I am one among those who are pushing for reopening tourism – even as early as January, 2021. But I am troubled that my zeal may be ill-founded. Reopening tourism prematurely may be even more devastating. Thus, I mailed a friend who is an expert on such matters, seeking reassurance. I just simply asked:

It seems like the question is now what is the better option:

To be prepared to take on the cost to treat infected persons; or

Continue to bear the cost of keeping tourism closed.

My friend came back with the following:

Yeshey –

You are posing a very tough question. Bhutan is facing a terrible dilemma.

The costs of an uncontrolled epidemic – human and economic and health care costs – would be astronomical, and would absolutely devastate Bhutan. There is no choice now but to hit hard on containing the virus – through social distancing and mask wearing and hand hygiene -- until a vaccine is widely available. That has been the lesson all over the world from national experiments in reopening.

Once a vaccine is available, and all Bhutanese and prospective travelers are immunized, then tourism is again possible (though mask wearing and other measures would still likely remain, because the first vaccines will not be 100 percent effective; we will be lucky if they are 70 percent effective). Population-wide vaccination could happen within a year or so. It’s important to remember that a large proportion of tourists to Bhutan are in the older demographic – a group at higher risk for serious infection, and therefore a group more wary of traveling. Also note that if tourism in Bhutan were opened prematurely, it would dramatically raise the risk of new outbreaks seeded by foreign visitors.

But there is a larger issue here, one that you addressed in your blog early in the pandemic. What about using this enforced interval of lockdown to make fundamental changes in the Bhutanese economy? For example, why not use this rare confluence of events to make the country agriculturally self-sufficient? Why not use this occasion to train younger people in computer skills and other high-tech specialties that could be the foundation of a new economy? Could the King himself, who has so ably guided the country through this crisis, lead the nation to an economic renaissance based on daring new ideas?

As you have pointed out many times, the economic promise of hydropower is empty. Tourism cannot be Bhutan’s only fallback position. If you were in charge of economic development in Bhutan, what policies would you put in place? In the 1980s, you were the visionary who brought computers to Bhutan. What ideas or aspirations would you want to bring to Bhutan now? What lessons did you learn then that are applicable today?

The history of plagues and pandemics, especially during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, has shown that these tragic events can lead to innovation and beneficial changes, even in the midst of catastrophic loss. I don’t underestimate how difficult things will be, economically, for Bhutan. But there is tremendous untapped potential among the Bhutanese people – they are extraordinarily resourceful and resilient and open-hearted. Can Bhutan turn this pandemic setback into lasting and beneficial change?