Political unrest a threat to tourism sector

Bangladesh is endowed with so many natural beauties like sea beaches, parks, forests, eco tourism, wild life sanctuaries, hill tracts areas, tea estates, island, etc. Moreover, two international standard sea ports, hundreds of museums, attract people from all over the world. Bright historical background has blessed Bangladesh with so many historic places, heritages, monuments, historical buildings and archaeological sites. Furthermore, picnic spots, bridges, amusement parks, mosques, tombs, temples & monastery, and churches have made the country an ideal place for the tourists. Glory historic background and the combination of huge cultural ingredients welcome the interest group of education tours. Cheap labor, huge potentiality and availability of raw materials attract people of business tourism. Bishwa Ijtema, tombs and other pilgrim spots have encouraged people of religious tourism. Moreover, good medical services have invited people of medical tourism.

Bangladesh is a new tourist destination on the map of the world. Bangladesh has enormous potential to develop tourism because of its attractive natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. Tourism can add value in the Bangladeshi economy if proper marketing plan and strategy can be built and implemented for this purpose. However, this industry fails to reach its destination due to adequate marketing practices. Therefore Bangladesh has ample opportunity of become as a tourist nation. Tourism, mostly a service industry, is more labor-oriented than other sectors of production.

Tourism can open a new horizon for Bangladesh. In fact, tourism in Bangladesh is becoming an emerging issue both for the public and private sectors to establish their eligibility for accomplishing a successful business as well as marketing activities development.

Tourism is the travel for recreational, leisure, family or business purposes usually of a limited duration. It carries out massive societal, cultural and economic values among the nations. There is plethora of discussions, parleys, and discourse in calculating the monetary as well as other benefits of tourism all over the world. Bangladesh as a developing country attaches high importance to attract visitors from abroad.

The relationship of tourism with a great variety of economic activities has fostered the interest in measuring its economic contribution. With the growing recognition of tourism as a source of employment generation growth in the country, better understanding of tourism, its role in the economy and its relationship to other factors of the economy is important. It may be noted that tourism is not classified as a separate industrial sector in National Accounts Statistics (NAS) rather it is covered through the activities of visitors which have considerable involvement in various sectors of the economy that is implicitly covered in NAS. Therefore, in order to estimate the contribution of tourism activities to GDP explicitly, Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) framework is the central platform developed by UN and is being used globally. An initiative for compiling a pilot TSA using the results from the “Survey on Selected Tourism Activities of Bangladesh 2011-12” and other secondary sources has been taken for the first time in Bangladesh to develop a reliable database for the focused sector.

Despite the government neglect, tourism in Bangladesh has made significant progress due to contribution of private sector. The total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP is forecast to rise by 6.8 per cent per annum to Tk 819.4 billion in 2023. This is according to a study of World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). Direct employment support by travel and tourism is forecast to rise by 2.9 per cent per annum to 1,785,000 jobs or 1.9 per cent of total employment in 2023. This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services (excluding commuter services).

Meanwhile, the travel and tourism sector posted 25 per cent growth in 2014 due to political stability. Earnings from the travel and tourism sector reached some 150 million US dollars in 2014 compared to 121.45 million US dollars in the previous year 2013, according to statistics of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC). The earnings from the sector recorded at 100.75 million US dollars in 2012, 83.73 million US dollars in 2011, 79.83 million US dollars in 2010 and 83.9 million US dollars in 2009.

According to statistics of Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB), a total of 276,583 tourists visited Bangladesh in 2013, 586,333 tourists in 2012, 593,722 tourists in 2011, 527,316 tourists in 2010 and 477, 026 tourists in 2009.

India tops the list of inbound tourists in Bangladesh, followed by British-Bangladeshis, Chinese, Australians and Canadians. According to BTB, a total of 160,230 Indians visited Bangladesh followed by 83,100 British-Bangladeshis in 2012. Indians who left this part of the country before partition mainly come to Bangladesh to see their ancestral properties and houses.

Some 400 Indians from Agartala and Tripura visit Bangladesh every day. If more efforts are given to North Eastern states of India, we can attract more tourists from the North-east India to visit Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar, Saint Martin islands, experts say.

The number of outbound tourists is much higher than the number of inbound tourists. 100,000 Bangladeshis every year visit Malaysia, 5,00,000 Bangladeshis visit India, 80,000 Bangladeshis visit Singapore and 70,000 Bangladeshis visit Thailand spending several billion dollars a year.     

   
Sources in the Bangladesh Foundation for Tourism Development (BFTD) said some 2000 Bangladeshi tourists visit India everyday. Northeastern states of India regularly participate in the annual events of the Bangladesh International Tourism Fair (BITF) organized by BFTD.

But it is unfortunate that the country`s on-going political crisis has posed a great threat to the flourishing tourism industry, felling 10 lakh people into uncertainty, side-by-side affecting the national economy hard and country`s good image.

For contentious blockade, hartal and violence about 10 lakh people, including owners, employees and workers, involved in the industry are badly affected.

Such a situation created in 2013 and tourism sector was affected seriously.

It is mentionable that December to February is considered the peak tourist season in the country and those involved in this sector wait the year round for this period. But, this time the season has been hit hard by the continuous political unrest.

The popular tourist resorts of Cox’s Bazar, Rangamati, Bandarban, Kuakata, Sylhet and other places are empty. There are hardly any guests at all in the hotels, motels, cottages and guest houses at these places. The restaurants have seen a slump in business too.

Due to political unrest, many people have lost their lives and many others received burn injuries and fighting with death in different hospitals of the country. Vehicles including trucks, buses, covered-vans auto-rickshaws and private cars are being torched everyday.

Another tour operation also alleges that a total of 30 tourists from Japan and China had planned to visit Bangladesh this month through their planners, but they have cancelled their trips.

In the backdrop of on-going political unrest, Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB) has demanded that the tourism sector to be kept out of the purview of hartal and blockade.

At a press conference recently, TOAB Director Taufik Rahman says, "Tourism sector will incur a loss of Tk 80-100 crore in the next three months, if the sector is not kept out of purview of strikes and blockades".

At the press conference, TOAB leaders placed three demands include keeping vehicles carrying tourists out of purview of all sorts of political programs; ensuring adequate security to foreign tourists; and providing financial compensation to tour operators and hotel owners affected by hartal and blockade.

Side-by-side people involved in the tourism sector, country`s experts have also raised their voices demanding resolve of country`s present crisis for the interest of tourism sector and economy.

Experts also opine that Bangladesh should attract tourists from neighbouring countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Malaysia. Even if we can attract few percentage of tourists from these countries, our economy will grow faster and contribution to GDP will be much higher, they say.

Hakim Ali, Chairman of Bangladesh Foundation for Tourism Development (BFTD) and Managing Director of Hotel Agrabad, opine that the government should cut the rate of VAT to give a boost to the tourism sector.

Terming the current rate of 15 per cent VAT on local tourism sector as the highest in the South Asia, he says that the government should fix it at 7.00 per cent to revamp the sector.

Experts claim that the government collection of VAT will mark a rise provided the present rate is reduced, adding that rate of VAT is only 5-7 per cent in the neighboring countries. The tourism sector could be a success story like readymade garment sector (RMG) sector, if necessary budgetary allocation was given for infrastructural development.

Experts propose that Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata sea beaches need to be upgraded on priority basis and more steps are needed for the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, to attract increasing number of tourists both from home and abroad.

Companies operating in the tourism sector may be provided with soft loan, to be distributed through banking channel arranged by Bangladesh Bank.

Demanding abolishment of 10 per cent supplementary duty (SD) on the local hotel industry, an expert says governments in the neighbouring countries do no impose same duty on the tourism sector.

It is a good sign that new entrepreneurs are investing millions of taka in the tourism sector foreseeing its high prospect.
Lamenting high duty on the liquor in Bangladesh, he says foreign tourists often complain about high duty on the commodity.

He also proposes the government that fund transfer of tour operators should be made easier as the present system encourages siphoning off foreign currency through unauthorized channels. Tourism industry is considered as a major source of foreign currency earnings for countries like India, Malaysia, Thailand, Maldives, Spain, Switzerland, Nepal, UAE, the Maldives, Indonesia, Singapore and many more.  

The world tourism market has grown at an average of 3.7 per cent over the past five years and is projected to grow by an average of 4.9 per cent over the next five years, with Asia and Pacific regions recording the fastest growth rate. According to the Global Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) (2010) travel and tourism actively hit hard by the global slump, even though sector worldwide still provided 235 million jobs in 2013. Tourism is one of top five export categories for as many as 83 per cent of countries and is a main source of foreign exchange earnings for earnings for at least 38 per cent of countries.       

Bangladesh can easily earn 2.00-3.00 billion US dollars per year by targeting foreign tourists experts opine. But the situation continues, it will pose a great threat to the prospective tourism sector, side-by-side affecting the overall national economy and country`s good image. So, all should come forward to resolve the crisis for the greater interest of country, they opine.

risingbd/DHAKA/Feb 20, 2015/Mukul