It is unfortunate that, despite Bangladesh’s lushness and natural abundance, our tourism sector seems incapable of making good on its own potential. As things stand, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, our tourism sector contributes about 4% to the national gross domestic product and 1.78% in terms of employment generation.
While 4% of our GDP is still nothing to scoff at, as stated above, our tourism potential is far too big for the tourism authorities to remain comfortable at such modest numbers and truly work towards rejuvenating our tourism scene to be on par with that of some of our regional neighbours.
Indeed, in the context of Bangladesh’s ambitious economic goals, a more robust tourism sector is going to be instrumental with a specific focus on attracting foreign tourists and holiday-makers. The sector, to its credit, does have an equally ambitious goal of attracting 10 million tourists and a revenue of $8 billion by the year 2041. While the realism of these numbers is still unclear, setting a target for such a crucial sector is a good first step.
What the sector needs to do is to clear up the many bottlenecks and sore spots which keep Bangladesh from being considered a truly world-class tourism destination. Safety and security of travellers has long been one area which we have historically fared poorly, while the preservation of some of our most important sites of historical significance is another area where we to improve as well.
But all of that would be for nothing if Bangladesh was not branded properly as a tourist destination. The sector needs to work on improving its public relations and marketing first in a way that would command the attention of foreign tourists and not simply rely on making them aware of our nation as their next vacation destination..