‘Pohela Boishakh needs promotion abroad to help expose our culture’

When did you plan to celebrate Bangla New Year?Being an international brand, The Westin Dhaka started marking Pohela Boishakh in 2007 and ever since, we are celebrating it amid festivity. Not only Bangla New Year, but we also observe all other special occasions with a satisfactory response from people, especially our customers. If you visit us on Pohela Boishakh, you will see our hotel overcrowded. People, mostly from Gulshan, throng our premises, which is highly encouraging for us. We decorate the hotel colourfully using local themes to bring in the feeling of Bangla culture. Even, the display of dishes prepared especially on the occasion is designed with a uniqueness.What made you think of celebrating the occasion in a five-star hotel? Look, our mother company, Marriot International’s concept is “Go Local.” We have a worldwide instruction to participate actively in local programmes and events related to the culture and history of a certain country or region. Marriot’s different hotels work with different brands. Westin is a lifestyle brand and it goes with your lifestyle. Hence, whenever you visit our hotel, you will find the lobbies packed. During the Pohela Boishakh celebrations, we have a village fair-like arrangement where one can discover face painting and even folk song show, among other, events. We decorate the hotel keeping in line with Bengali lifestyle and display local cuisines lucratively. You will only get this ambience at TSC or Fine Arts faculty of Dhaka University. Gulshan residents prefer to visit the hotel to introduce their children with Pohela Boishakh celebrations as part of rich Bangla heritage, instead of taking them to Dhaka University considering time, crowd and traffic congestion.How we can promote Pohela Boishakh abroad?The government can take measures to help promote the occasion oversees. If so, many foreigners will come to know about Pohela Boishakh and become interested to celebrate it in Bangladesh. We can also hold Mangal Shobhajatra, a mass procession brought out on Pohela Boishakh morning, which can become a key attraction to foreigners. As we know, China, Mexico, Brazil and Thailand, among many other countries, celebrate their own new year vibrantly. Unfortunately, many Bangladeshis visit Thailand to celebrate their event.How would you expose Bengali culture?  Western people will be able to taste Bangladeshi cuisines and experience its culture through Pohela Boishakh. Our culture will get much exposure to foreigners through such celebrations. We will try to the make the most of our cultural branding by exposing how we actually observe Bangla New Year. The government can step forward to help us do so.Have you any special pacakage on Pohela Boishakh? We have a special package for our valued guests at Tk14,024 (April 13-15) for accomodation and breakfast (complementary). The price is cheaper than our regular ones.