With the skewed seasonality in tourist arrivals, always reaching the peak during festivals, the two bottlenecks operators face are seats on the Druk Air flight and hotel rooms to stay in.

“For the tshechu days, rooms are booked about three months in advance and it is not possible to get the rooms in the last minute unless there are cancellations,” said the manager of Wangchuk Hotel, Chencho.

The tourism department has identified only about 70 hotels in the country fit for tourists. In Thimphu and Paro, there are about 500 rooms and 1,000 beds suitable for tourists.

Etho Metho Tour and Treks has about 100 tourists coming just for the tshechu. It had to postpone some late arrival inquiries because they could not arrange hotels in Thimphu, said company’s director Nim Gyeltshen.

The Yangphel Tour and Treks brought in about 200 tourists during the Thimphu tshechu about three years ago. “This year, we have just about 90 tourists spread over to visit the Thimphu, Gangtey and Wangdue tshechu,” said managing director, Karma Lotey. “It is very difficult to get hotel rooms during the tshechu,” he said.

Facing the accommodation crunch, many tour operators resort to keep their tourists in hotels that are well below the tourist catering standards.

“But the tourists are informed of the condition well before their arrival and we agree to bring them only if they are willing to accept it,” said a tour operator who did not want to be named. “If they really want to come during the tshechu, there is no other way out.”

Accommodation becomes more of an issue “when you go to the eastern parts of the country,” said general secretary of Association of Bhutanese Tour Operators (ABTO), Sonam Dorji.

Many tour operators also keep tourists in identified farmhouses. Sonam Dorji said that farmhouses are furnished in advance and added that farmhouses were also becoming a part of the tour itinerary because “many tourists enjoy and look forward to stay in real farmhouses”.

Some tourists spend their nights in pitched tents. “It is quite popular during the Jambay Lhakhang drup in Bumthang,” said a cultural guide.

Some tour operators say that the trend has to be stopped. “Even if the tourists are informed in advance and they are willing to stay in tents, it would cost us our credibility to do so,” said one tour operator.

While the most common complaints of the tourists are the dogs barking at night, tourists have complained of accommodation. “In my seven years experience as a guide, the maximum feedback from tourists has been the poor quality of accommodation,” said a guide. “Unclean towels, toilets with flushes that do not work and uncomfortable mattresses are some common complaints,” he said.

Sonam Dorji said that some tourists also commented on the limited menu of meals offered to them. Tourists are served a mix of Bhutanese and continental menu and it hardly changes.

During tshechus, tour operators even face a shortage of trained guides in the absence of which free-lancers and civil servants who want to make some extra money are roped in.

Tour operators say that it is time to change the concept of the peak and the lean season and also go for a paradigm shift in the marketing strategy to promote tourism in the country.

The peak season for tourists is from March to April and September to November while the lean seasons are in the monsoon months of June to August and the cold winter months of December to February.

With tourism gaining prominence, “it is important to break the seasonality and promote tourism during the lean season,” said Etho Metho’s Nim Gyeltshen.

Karma Lotey of Yangphel said that charging tourists extra in the form of surcharges during the peak season like the Thimphu tshechu could encourage a uniform seasonality. “The Thimphu tshechu has become too crowded and a stampede could occur any time,” he said.