Bhutan, a Low Carbon Destination:
Bhutan a small nation in the Eastern Himalayas between China and India, two of the most carbon emitting countries in the world, has set some impressive environmental benchmarks. It is not merely carbon neutral, it is also a carbon sink, making it one of the few countries in the world to have negative carbon emissions.
TLF Holidays is committed to endorse ‘Low Carbon Tourism Initiative’ in Bhutan and is dedicatedly promoting some of the Low Carbon packages initiated by this project in the international market. The Company is seriously committed to acquire a brand for Bhutan as a Low Carbon Destination.
Low Carbon Tourism Initiative: Bhutan has committed itself to remain carbon neutral at all times and has a strong national strategy for green growth within the overall development philosophy that values happiness (GNH). Tourism a vulnerable sector of business has initiated ‘Low Carbon Tourism Initiative’ that has become an integral extension of national as well as collective global efforts towards Bhutan’s environment through ‘promotion of sustainable production and consumption practices across the tourism value chain of Bhutan coupled with sustainable livelihood development’.
The objective of this initiative is to persuade sustainable tourism development and sustainable consumption /production in tourism business through development of Low Carbon Tourism products and packages. While the overall objective is to contribute to economic prosperity, poverty reduction and climate change mitigation in Bhutan by promoting sustainable tourism development, the specific objective is to promote sustainable production and consumption practices across the tourism value chain of Bhutan coupled with sustainable livelihood development.
This initiative over the past couple of years, has gathered comprehensive data from tourism industry, analyzed these data, generated reports and has created a benchmark for the country in terms of its carbon emission and carbon footprint. This is undertaken to qualify some of the existing as well as new products and services that need to be carefully packaged as Low Carbon tourism products and packages. Parallel to these, the initiative also embarked on building capacity of the stakeholders and key players in the industry to carry forward the sustainable tourism development objective and inculcate the practice of sustainable consumption and production in their operations.
The low carbon products and services that require to be packaged may not be totally new, given the limited pool of possible products and resources to build on, but is appropriately packaged to make the elements of carbon emission and responsible tourism inclusive and appealing to the clients. The packages will be designed to also encourage reduction in the carbon footprint and allow opportunities for guests as well as the industry to take part in the mitigation measures directly or indirectly through their participation or taking these packages.