This year between 1st June and 31st August Bhutan offered a special package to the citizens of Thailand and residents of Thailand to visit Bhutan. This offer was to celebrate the 25 years of friendship between the two kingdoms.
The airlines, hotels and tour operators offered up to 50% discount to celebrate the occasion. If you are interested to read more about the offer please see the following link www.mycitythimphu.blogspot.com
The initial target was to attract 3,000 citizens/residents of Thailand to visit Bhutan. The Friendship offer was a great success as over 8,700 citizens and residents of Thailand visited Bhutan during the offer period. Over the past year or two there have been about 3,000 visitors originating from Thailand.
This is a good sign of the growing friendship between Bhutan and Thailand. It is expected that this year Thailand will be either the No1 or No 2 source of visitors to Bhutan. This is a phenomenal achievement considering that it was only a few years ago that the numbers were as little as a few hundreds of visitors from Thailand.
What is even more amazing is that about 5 years ago most people did not even know that a country called Bhutan existed. Today most people in Thailand are not only aware of Bhutan but know about Bhutan and are especially aware of His Majesty the King of Bhutan.
The success of this offer in its simplest form can be calculated in the number of people who visited Bhutan, but the real potential of such an offer cannot be estimated in the short term but we are confident that over the years the result of such people to people interaction will result in many other benefit and create opportunities for both the nations.
We hope that such Friendship offer is only a start our government will consider such offers next year too.
