- Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
- The secluded Himalayan kingdom has always been fiercely protective of its Buddhist-oriented heritage. Above, the Punakha Dzong, which is the second oldest dzong in Bhutan.
Until the 1970s, Bhutan had a no-tourist policy. It was feared outside visitors would corrupt the country's culture and spoil its pristine natural habitat.
The secluded Himalayan kingdom – often described as the last Shangri-La – has always been fiercely protective of its Buddhist-oriented heritage. This explains policies like the country's dress code, which requires Bhutanese to wear traditional robes, and the late arrival of television, first introduced in 1999, a day after the access to the Internet was also allowed.
Even today, few can say they've been to Bhutan, a mountainous country sandwiched between China and India. Tourism is still tightly regulated but this may change as Bhutan sets out to more-than-double the number of tourists it attracts as soon as next year.
Bhutan, which in 2010 counted 40,000 tourists, hopes to draw 100,000 visitors in 2012, says Kesang Wangdi, the head of the country's tourism council. The numbers pale in comparison to the over five million people that visit India every year. But it's a lot for Bhutan, which has a population of 700,000. So far Bhutan seems to be on the right track: between January and April, the number of tourists increased 62% from a year earlier.
But the country's tourism council is very picky about what kind of tourists [...]
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