Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB) urged the government to allow duty-free import of vehicles and provide bank loan at easy terms for the sector.
The association placed a set of demands at a pre-budget meeting with National Board of Revenue (NBR) yesterday.
Eleven other organisations, mostly from service sector, also placed their demands in the same meeting with NBR Chairman Ghulam Hussain in the chair.
“Though the government has declared the tourism sector as an industry, we do not get any financial supports including bank loan,” said Taufiq Rahman, director of TOAB.
TOAB sought duty-free import of tourist vessels to encourage river tourism and demanded value added tax (VAT) withdrawal on service charges.
It said the star-rated hotels were taking 15% Vat and 10-12.5% other charge on the price.
Taufiq Rahman said the hotels set room rents in US dollar but don’t follow the current exchange rate, making the customers pay Tk3-6 more in every dollar.
“We want the government to make following of current dollar rate mandatory for the hoteliers.”
Bangladesh International Hotel Association President Hakim Ali urged the government to withdraw supplementary taxes on the sector.
While placing demands, a hotel businessman wanted the government to keep rural resort centres out of tax as the rural tourism was just in its nascent stage but promising to help develop rural economy.
NBR chief listened to demands of all organisations and came up with assurance that he would place them before finance minister.
He also put stress on a guideline for hotels to ensure quality and suggested that the industry people should also work for such a guideline.
If the country’s hotels follow a certain standard, the related industries including backward linkage will also develop, Ghulam Hussain said.
He said the government recently announced duty-free import of goods for construction of luxury hotels.