Recipes to boost coastal tourism

Of late, the government has undertaken a raft of projects to develop a number of tourism spots along the country’s coastal and marine belts to attract both local and foreign backpackers and holidaymakers.  The coastal area, constituting about 20 per cent of Bangladesh, remains largely untapped for tourists and tourism, while the world’s longest unbroken non-bikini sea beach of 580-kilometre in Cox’s Bazar has so far failed to woo foreign tourists due to lack of adequate facilities.

An in-depth report published in this daily states that Cox’s Bazar, Teknaf and St Martin’s Island are going to have facelifts and new facilities involving hundreds of crores of Taka. To attract both local and international tourists, a good number of international-standard hotels, motels, cottages, watchtowers, golf courses, amusement parks with rides, artificial lakes, and picnic spots are also being set up at various places along the coastal belt of Bangladesh.

Apart from the longest coastal belt, the government is also transforming all the fallow or unused land located in various attractive places such as Tekerhat limestone quarry of Sunamganj into haor tourism spots. The project is likely to be approved soon.

State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism M Mahbub Ali said, “As we would like to introduce our country’s tourism sector to the globetrotters, the government is implementing various multiple infrastructure development projects such as exclusive Sabrang Tourism Park at Cox’s Bazar, Kuakata Development Project, hotel at Khan Jahan Ali Mazar.”

“An integrated tourism zone will also be set up comprising Kuakata, Taltali, and Patharghata of Barguna district.”

These are very encouraging statements from the top boss of the civil aviation ministry. It is pertinent to suggest that mere infrastructure facility alone cannot boost tourism in the country, as the promising sector has so far failed to attract foreign tourists and the country lags behind almost all countries in South Asia towards attracting overseas tourists. According to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019, the dominant portion, or 97 per cent of earnings in tourism of Bangladesh comes from domestic sources. This indicates that Bangladesh is hardly a popular destination among foreign tourists.

South Asia and Southeast Asia have been popular tourist destinations for quite some time. South Asia earned $39.4 billion in revenue from tourist spending while South East Asia earned $151.9 billion USD in 2018. Bangladesh has thus been able to utilize a very small part of this huge market in the region, says the latest competitiveness report.

The common destinations for tourists in this region are India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam with around 1.15 billion tourists visiting these countries per annum. The total earnings of these countries in the year 2018 was around $164 billion which is 86 per cent of the total earnings in this region. Other popular destinations include Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia and The Philippines. Between 2010 and 2018, Southeast Asia and South Asia has seen the fastest global growth in tourism with a growth of 8 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.

The successes of these countries give Bangladesh an ideal case to follow and develop its own tourism Industry.

Almost half of the total tourists who come to Bangladesh are from India. The remaining tourists mostly come from Asian countries. While five per cent of the tourists come from the US, these figures include Bangladeshi origin US citizens. Only seven per cent of the tourists arrive from the rest of the world, says the report.

Among the major shortcomings Bangladesh has been suffering in tourism sector include the high cost of tourism, lack of nightlife facilities and liquor restriction.  When it comes to other factors like infrastructure, health and hygiene, ICT readiness, and tourist service infrastructure, Bangladesh is ranked lower than its competitors in the region. This is a deterrent to tourists since they can get a better value for their money in other countries.

To reap optimum benefit out of tourism, among other issues, the government can encourage Halal Tourism to cater to the vast Muslim population in the world. The Muslim tourist market is growing and is expected to reach $300 billion by 2026, according to an international study. Currently, Bangladesh is not among the top 10 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations among Muslim tourists. However, being a Muslim country, Bangladesh has the potential to attract a section of this growing market.

We hope the move by the government to bolster the neglected tourism industry will be translated into reality, and the economy will be benefitted out of the planned and ongoing development projects in this regard.