Home ›› 12 Nov 2021 ›› Nation
Around 750 hotels, motels, and guesthouses along the 120km pristine coconut palm-lined sandy beaches, fresh seafood, hill, and tropical weather of Cox’s Bazar invite more than one crore tourists every year.
However, the tourism sector in Cox’s Bazar is based on unplanned urbanisation, where influential people are turning the beach town into a busy and cramped area lacking the minimum civic amenities.
Most of the buildings, restaurants and other recreational places, which were constructed in the last decade, are without any proper urbanisation plan and within a 15-20km stretch of the 120km beach, said Shaimum Sarwar Kamal, an incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) from Cox’s Bazar-3.
While this small area is crammed with hundreds of unplanned multi-storey buildings, the rest of the areas are lying unused and gradually getting grabbed by influentials, locals alleged.
Addressing the issue, MP Kamal told The Business Post, “The government can utilise the unused places along the beach by building a variety of recreational centres for the tourists. If not, they can lease out the places to different national or international organisations so that they can turn the district into an international-standard tourist destination attracting international visitors and adding to the country’s export earnings.”
He further said these valuable places are being grabbed illegally or leased out to undeserving people in return for a nominal price for the lack of supervision by the government.
Chief Executive Officer of Seagull Hotel Sheikh Imrul Siddiqi Rumi said, “Tourism in Cox’s Bazar remains buoyant for only four months a year. However, if we could establish more recreational arrangements for the tourists, their number would have increased.”
Farida Yasmin Bithi, who came to visit the beach from Jatrabari, Dhaka, said they are paying a huge amount of money for below-average living arrangements and services.
“The hotels, restaurants, and the beach are all very crowded, and the services are not good. However, if the government pays attention to the sector and restructure the whole city, we would have a much better experience,” she said.
Saiful Ashraf, who came to Cox’s Bazar from Khulna, said if facilities, such as sea cruises, scuba diving, surfing training centres, marine fish exhibitions, and mobile restaurants, were there, the government could have earned remittance, and tourists could have had a better experience.
Another tourist, Irin Sultana, said most areas along Marine Drive are left untouched and inaccessible to tourists for safety purposes.
But if those were used to equip facilities differently, she said it would have been a great place to visit.
Zafar Alam, the first surfer of the country, said, “If the facilities were better, we could have had a great surfing arrangement here.”
Abu Morshed Chowdhury, vice president of Cox’s Bazar Chamber of Commerce, told The Business Post that Cox’s Bazar is rich in its cultural heritage.
He said, “We have century-old temples, mosques, pagodas, etc., which we can reequip and open for tourists to visit. We already arranged some international events in Cox’s Bazar, and if we had better facilities, we could have arranged them often.”
Omar Sultan, president of Cox’s Bazar Hotel Guesthouse Owners Association, said, “We can utilise the natural resources of Cox’s Bazar and turn them into luxury tourist destinations.”
SM Kibria, president of Cox’s Bazar Tour Operator Association, told The Business Post that over 3,000 workers of 242 tour operator companies are involved in the tourism business, and they are working day and night to provide better services for the tourists.
“However, almost 80 per cent of them are not trained, do not hold any identification and work on a seasonal basis. For these reasons, the tourists face many problems during their visit.
“If the government facilitates this sector, businesses, tourists and people who are associated with tourism would benefit,” he added.
