Bhutan is building a second international airport that could change how people reach the kingdom, but not the way it wants them to experience it. The Gelephu International Airport, slated to open in 2029, is designed for the Gelephu Mindfulness City and has already won the Future Project of the Year award at the 2025 World Architecture Festival.
The terminal will use latticed timber carved from Bhutanese wood and include spaces for gong baths, yoga and meditation. It is planned to handle 123 flights a day, a major increase for a country that has long limited how the world visits.
That matters because bhutan has spent decades treating tourism as something to be managed, not maximized. The country began allowing tourists to enter in 1974 and built a High Value, Low Volume model around that idea. Before the pandemic, most international visitors had to book through a licensed Bhutanese tour operator and pay a Minimum Daily Package Rate of US$200-250 per day. Since 2022, Bhutan has charged a $100 Sustainable Development Fee per adult per night instead of the all-inclusive tariff.
For now, Paro remains the country’s lone international airport. It is served by Drukair and Bhutan Airlines and usually welcomes about eight flights a day. Travelers from North America and Europe often spend multiple days in transit to get there, and round-trip flights from connecting hubs can cost upwards of £890. Paro sits at 2,243m, with mountains around it rising to 5,500m, and fewer than 50 pilots are qualified to land there.
That bottleneck has shaped the visitor experience for years. In 2025, Paro welcomed 88,546 visitors, most of whom followed a familiar route through Thimphu, Punakha Valley, Phobjikha Valley and Bumthang. Gelephu is meant to widen the doorway, not abandon the policy that made Bhutan distinct.
King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck helped clear land for the airport earlier this year with 12,000 volunteers, a signal that the project is being treated as both infrastructure and national statement. The friction is obvious: Bhutan wants more access, but it is building an airport that still reflects caution, ritual and control. By 2029, the question will not be whether the country can draw more visitors. It will be whether it can do so without letting the place become ordinary.