A festival of Mongolian culture, including the famous mask dances, ‘Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam’, has become one of the highlights on the tourist calendar. Revived in 2015, the August event was visited by 1000 foreign visitors; this increased to 3000 in 2017 – this year many people have travelled from abroad just to see this colourful celebration of  dance and music. The event was scheduled to take place next week.

Sadly, they have discovered that the religious and cultural festival ‘Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam 2019’ will be held a month later on 6-7 September at the National Sports Stadium, according to the Gandantegchinlen (aka Gandan) Monastery.

Mongolian travel agencies announce their plans for foreign tourists well in advance by months or by year; annual events such as the ‘Taliin Salkhi Motorcycle Festival’, the ‘Deeltei Mongol Traditional Fashion Festival’ and Danshig Naadam-Khuree Tsam’ are magnets for attracting tourists. It is well known, that boosting tourism to this amazing country is a core government policy.

So, what has gone wrong?  It appears that the Ulaanbaatar City Administration has announced that starting this year the city governor’s office is no longer willing to cooperate in organizing ‘Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam’. As a result of funding and resources suddenly not being available it has been postponed. The UB Governor’s Office and the Gandan Monastery have been co-organizing ‘Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam’ since its revival in 2015.

Some tourists had already arrived in Ulaanbaatar when they heard the news about the postponement and are very disappointed. It is not just the tourists who feel let down, the travel agencies feel their authority has been undermined.  Several Mongolian travel agencies such as Ayan Travel LLC, ‘Let’s Travel’ LLC, and ‘Nomadic Journeys’ LLC have complained to the  Mongolian Travel Association. For example; ‘Let’s Travel’ LLC brought 50-60 tourists from three countries in Mongolia especially for ‘Danshig Naadam – Khuree Tsam’.