Nomad Festival

Bhutan Nomad Festival

Across the globe, in many developing countries, community based tourism is being promoted as one of the main ways to alleviate poverty. Examples range from bush walks and animal tracking offered by the Masai in Kenya to discovery trips organised by indigenous tribes in the Amazon of South America. Such schemes are often organised to include the conservation of biodiversity within their framework. Global estimates for tourism puts its annual net worth at billions of dollars, of which an estimated 10% of the revenue is attributed to nature based tourism. There is however ongoing debate regarding equitable distribution of benefits from such ventures. More importantly, literature shows that – sometimes – communities do not draw significant benefits from such enterprises. Nomad  The tourism industry is the second largest foreign exchange earner for Bhutan. Notwithstanding the policy of “high value, low volume tourism”, there is great opportunity to expand Bhutan’s tourism sector: both in terms of services offered as well the number of tourist intakes. To enable the increase of tourist intakes, a major policy initiative has been the effort to diversify packages offered by Bhutan’s tourism industry. Comments from tourists, such as: “we are totally dogged out!” have added urgency to this requirement. Particularly, focus has been accorded to make currently low tourist intake (off-season) months attractive to tourists. Towards this, leaders and policy makers have stressed the need for community based tourism programs. Drawing from experiences elsewhere, another policy concern has been the need to establish proper institutional and legislative framework to ensure that benefits from tourism reach a wider circle of stakeholders Nomad Dance This initiative can fulfill three major objectives: 1.     At the national level, this venture will add to the diversity of tourist experiences and services offered by Bhutan’s tourism industry. This will help Bhutan compete successfully with other destinations across the globe. Further, this initiate could help to have tourists in off season distributing the cost and benefit of tourists spatially and temporally. 2.     At the local level, this will help supplement incomes for nomadic groups through sale of their livestock products; for local communities through homestays and catering services and for tour companies and local hoteliers from the lodging/food services for national and foreign visitors. 3.     It will also provide following opportunities: (a)   Showcase the nomadic culture and heritage in real setting. (b)   Showcase nomadic products of varied range and expose on monetary based business. (c)   Take stock of nomadic socio-economic progress and development situation. (d)   Promote income generation opportunities to nomads in their settings. (e)   Showcase the technologies, programs and activities being initiated by different sectors that have potential for adoption and economically viable to the nomads at the places of their living. (f)    Make the nomadic way of life economically and socially attractive for younger generation. (g)   Provide an avenue bringing together all the highland farmers (herders and nomads) of different backgrounds for sharing of their culture, tradition and experiences.