Sustainable development fee in Bhutan

The Government of Bhutan has a way with innovating. The Government was first in the world to create a Ministry of Happiness in 2008. After over a decade, they are setting another exemplar, so to say, in terms of  Sustainable Development Fee (SDF). The lower house of ‘Tshogdu’ or Bhutan’s Parliament passed legislation that tourists from India, Maldives, and Bangladesh have to pay a certain amount of SDF for their stay in the country. We hope that the sustainable development fee does not result in a dip in regional tourism. A sustainable development fee is a payment for the maintenance of ecology disrupted by the tourists visiting the country. This reads like the case of penalizing the highest of culprit, however, while India makes @70% of the tourism market as per the 2018 report by Tourism Council of Bhutan, the ecological disruption is created by any single individual tourist. Provisions of SDF waiver has been considered and get revisited periodically.