Economic sustainability? Examining the linkages and leakages between agriculture and hotels in Bhutan

Abstract

Bhutan is known for its approach to high-value, low-volume tourism development.Bhutan has been cited as an example of a best case approach to sustainable tourism.However, like other landlocked countries, Bhutan relies heavily on imported goods from neighbouring countries such as India and Thailand, leading to significant economic leakages. This raises the question of how economically sustainable Bhutan's tourism is. This research employs a mixed microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis of linkages and leakages between different sectors in the Bhutanese tourism industry, in particular hotels and agriculture to ascertain the volume and value of these leakages.

Sustainable Agritourism in Thailand: Modeling Business Performance and Environmental Sustainability under Uncertainty

“…Understanding farm diversification from firms' perspectives will therefore overcome the limitations of existing classification schemes. For instance, scholars suggested that agritourism be included as a form of farm diversification, where firms' decisions are driven by goals such as increasing revenues, reducing risks, maximizing the use of resources, cross marketing farm products, and other forms of value-adding [13,34,46,47]. The most dominant of these goals are economic goals [29,30,48].…”

“…Environmental management issues such as water use, waste generation, energy consumption, and pollution should also be considered [39,51]. Diversification strategies and the attributes of success differ depending on the rural context [13,29,37,47].…”

“…The development of a local business value chain can lead to a better understanding of what motivates farmers to diversify their agricultural outputs and can contribute valuable insights. Clarifying the motives leading to involvement in government-led tourism promotion and the diversification of farmers is important because this ability to diversify has environmental and economic benefits for farm operations [13,29,47]. Table 1 presents the proposed attributes used to measure sustainable agritourism.…”

Local food and tourism in the Global South

“…Since the 1980s, there has been an ever-increasing body of research that outlines all sorts of valid reasons why tourism operators and small-scale farmers in the Global South struggle to connect (e.g. Bélisle, 1983;Pratt et al, 2018;Rogerson, 2012;Telfer & Wall, 1996;Timms & Neill, 2011;Torres & Momsen, 2004). Predominantly, on the one hand authors point towards the inability of farmers to grow what is needed by the resorts in the right quality, sufficient quantity and in a reliable manner.…”

“…Many emerging economies of the Global South suffer from significant economic leakages of tourism income, not least of all due to food importation (e.g. Anderson, 2013;Lacher & Nepal, 2010;Meyer, 2007;Pratt, Suntikul, & Dorji, 2018).…”