The three-day long Bangladesh International Tourism Fair 2015 that began on May 21 at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center will end tonight.
Tour operators from Bangladesh and other countries participated in the fair, offering various national and international tour packages. Yesterday, the fair saw crowds of visitors booking travel packages and collecting information for their next vacation.
Md Suman Rahman, sales executive of Cosmos Holiday said: “Because of the political situation, the last tourism season was lifeless in our country. People did not travel anywhere for fear of violence; that would continue to affect the tourism sector for the next few months.”
However, our foreign tourists were almost the same as before this year, he added.
Rakibul Hasan, a businessman, came with his family to the tourism fair to collect information on tour packages for Bangkok.
HM Hakim Ali, chairman of Bangladesh Foundation for Tourism Development (BFTD) said: “We are getting huge response from the people and we hope it will reinforce our tourism sector.”
However, participants in the fair expressed dissatisfaction as the first day of the three-day long fair was closed at 6:30pm because of the PM’s programme at the conference centre.
Rezaul Ekram, CEO of the tourism fair, said the situation was unavoidable as we came to know of the programme four days before the tourism fair.