The year 2015 has been
designated, as the Visit Bhutan year. This little declaration has been received
with so much positivity, especially and excessively in the tourism arena.
Every participant in the
sector has been on their creative best to come up with the best of ideas and
strategies to showcase Bhutan in all its glory and splendor. The Lyonchhen who
launched the Visit Bhutan 2015 had also stressed on promotion of domestic tourism.
Preparations have been
determinedly and doggedly strong from every government and private entities to showcase
the Bhutanese nation to visitors. They remain in action even as this is being
read. To begin with, special customized websites for the Visit Bhutan 2015 has
been launched, tailor-made flight packages or tourism packages are seemingly
all the rage among tour operators, flight and holiday packages also happen to
be timed and catered on these opportunistic grounds. And just like that a proverbial
‘thousand and one’ activities are at hand for every hand.
In all these preparations,
perhaps the one basic area feeling very left out is that of the nation’s
physical state of affairs inclusive of sights, sounds and activities (social
and unsocial).
If outsiders are to be
ushered in with the promise of getting an opportunity to witness one unique
place wrapped in an enigma of being isolated and preserved as a ‘Last
Shangri-la,’ a land where happiness is placed center point in its development
plans and policies, then it is equally important that the seemingly ignored
areas of basic sanity and cleanliness, changing crime rates, controllable
natural hazards etc. are all taken into account to present a ‘what you were
marketed is not what you are getting’ deal to the visiting outsiders.
The state of the capital
city in being portrayed as the ‘green and clean’ city of a country championing
all things possibly and naturally green is general knowledge – a tad too much
on the struggling side.
It is common sight to see
every next person on a random next location flouting civic rules by dumping
garbage improperly. Multiplying all the individual acts at different locations,
we have easily demonstrated a defaced and an unpleasantly presentation of
general will power in preserving ones surrounds beautifully packaged and
marketed abroad as hallmark of preservation in beautiful surroundings.
In this, a man’s or
woman’s basic requirement of a clean public facility of toilets comes to high
prominence. Going by current trends in and around town, designated public
facilities are more terrorizing and graphic than actual (and virtual) pictures
of terrorizing and extremely graphic natures.
It’s a single cry of
horror that will become manifold owing to the numbers visiting the country and
witnessing the not very pleasant experiences, which will eventually paint an
undesirable image of the nation.
The infamously mounting
crime rates and the increase in level of serious crimes such as cold-blooded
homicides are not becoming of the otherwise so pleasantly branded country
(Happiness is a Place). Authorities are on their toes and respected and
respective citizens as parents, teachers are all doing their needful in this,
and hopingly all things remain sufficiently civilized and contained for eyes
and ears that visit with hopes of being exhilarated with awe and not shocked by
rude surprises.
The nation Bhutan is no
matter what, a country that has had very beautiful cultural practices and
traditions so well-preserved, handed down from generation to generation.
Everyone in their
reflections of the country recount the similar thoughts of a place that is
peaceful, beautifully preserving its natural wealth, a place where the young
still respect and heed words of their elders, where communities are united like
family, sharing in joys and sorrows.
The nation’s customs in
hosting a guest at home is unlike any others’. They are considered a form of
the ‘divine,’ come to spread good tidings in the places or homes they visit.
That way a guest leaves with much happiness in heart and an exceptionally good
review of the host and his or her place.
Well, the guests are
coming, all of us might as well play the good host.
Published as Business Bhutan Editorial on January 31, 2015
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