Rangamati spots ready to receive tourists

The popular tourist spots in Rangamati will reopen for the visitors on Thursday after five months of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The local administration is planning to reopen the tourism spots including Shuvolong waterfall, Hanging Bridge, Sajak Valley, Kaptai Lake, Paulwell Park, Aranyak and Peda Ting Ting along with all hotels and motels in the district.

Officials from the district administration said the reopening of the tourist attractions and hotels, motels would help the businesses recover from the loss caused by the lockdown.

Rangamati Porjoton Complex expects a high turnout of tourists from all over the country.

According to the Rangamati Residential Hotel Owners Association, the tourist-based businesses in the district have faced a daily loss of Tk 2 crore due to the pandemic, which also rendered 17,000 people jobless.

The recreation centres were asked to close their doors from April 5 to contain the spread of the virus after a second wave of infections, said Md Mizanur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Rangamati.

Visitors from all over the country used to throng the tourist spots during the national holidays and on the weekends. But they remained mostly vacant during the last two years for the pandemic, locals said.

Srijan Bikash Barua, manager of Rangamati Parjatan Corporation, said they have incurred a loss of about Tk 1.5 crore in the last five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The tourists have started calling them to book rooms from different parts of the country again after the news of reopening of the recreation centres have spread, he said.

“Hopefully we will recover the financial losses caused by the shutdown in the next few months,” said the manager.

Md. Mostafa, vice-president of the Tourist Boat Owners Association, told The Business Post that their livelihood depends on tourism in the region and they are all set to receive tourists.

“We have sufficient boats to maintain a huge number of tourists and currently 60 of our boats are ready for tourists. I hope we can recover the losses we faced during the lockdown,” he said.

Mostafa Kamal Uddin, joint general secretary of the Rangamati Residential Hotel Owners Association and proprietor of Hotel Dreamway said, “We are in a severe economic downturn. We had to lay off more than 500 of our workers.”

“We, the hotel owners, have not yet received any incentives or loans announced by the government,” he said. “It would have been easier to get incentives if the deputy commissioner had asked the banks concerned. This would have been enabled the traders to turn around after overcoming losses,” he added.

Addressing the issue, DC Mizanur Rahman told The Business Post that he was planning to arrange a meeting with the banks about the plea of the businessmen. “I would try my best to help the businesses in this difficult situation,” he added.

Sabbir Ahmed, general secretary of the Rangamati Chamber of Commerce, said, “The government’s decision to reopen Rangamati has brought a sense of relief to businessmen in this region.”

Everyone here is ready to welcome the tourists, he told The Business Post, adding that it would have been much better if they could manage incentives, loans from the government.