My last blog post about Bhutan.
My husband Ed and I were very curious to compare the tourism industry in Bhutan to the one back home in Vermont because both places are about the same size.
And we were actually lucky enough to find recent articles for both countries. Bhutan welcomed 17,000 visitors in 2006 (it limits the number of visitors, however) and tourism revenues were $25 million in 2005. On the other hand, tourists take 13.4 million trips to Vermont every year, for total revenues of $1.57 billion, and Vermont has 23,000 hotel rooms.
I know, Bhutanese people reading this blog are going to say: “they must be literally invaded by tourists!“. Well, maybe people in Stowe (a major ski resort here in Vermont) feel that way, but the place where we live and most places in Vermont (I believe) feel that this is actually a pretty quiet place.
Of course, Vermont can attract people for short stays a lot easier than Bhutan can, but it definitely shows that Bhutan tourism has a lot of space to grow as an industry (if they desire).