What if you have many innovative ideas and good planning but no money to implement those ideas? Obviously, all that planning will become shelved, cursed to gather dust for time unknown. Bangladesh’s tourism industry is more or less like that.
The concerned tourism offices as well as the private sector have lots of ideas and plans, but tangible implementation is almost negligible, as sufficient budgetary allocation is simply not there. We need proper planning.
But, at the same time, we need money, whether it’s through Foreign Direct Investment or local investment. It is our reality that planning and investment never go hand in hand.
Tourism in Bangladesh is a nascent industry; therefore, it needs properforesight with sufficient investment in order to improve it.
Here, policy-makers are yet to convince the concerned authorities that tourism can be an effective tool to reduce poverty and also act as a strong wheel for economic progress.
There is sufficient evidence which shows that many countries in the world ameliorate their poverty margins through the tourism industry.
They made sufficient budgetary allocation for two or three consecutive years, but have seen incredible returns -- double, or in some cases triple, within a few years.
In 2013, India made a budgetary allocation of around $200 million to its tourism industry, and in return, it earned $17.97bn. In the same year, Sri Lanka invested $5m and in return earned $1.039bn. Malaysia invested $604m and earned $20.25bn.
In comparison to the statistics of these countries, ours is very insignificant. All tourism-developed countries are convinced that more investment in the tourism sector bears more profit and generates more employment.
Unfortunately, we are yet to convince ourselves with this idea, and so our progress is just as lagging.
It is quite natural that Bangladesh, being a developing country, may not be capable of allocating sufficient budget for tourism. Hence, it needs foreign investment desperately.
Without foreign investment, it may not be possible to improve the nation’s tourism industry up to a good enough level.
For attracting foreign investment, both the public and private sectors should be working in harmony.
Here, the apex bodies of the private sector like FBCCI, DCCI, and foreign chambers of Bangladesh can work and collaborate with the government. A tourism investment fund can also be created in Bangladesh so that both the local and foreign investors enhance confidence in investing in Bangladesh’s tourism sector.
The media can also work in demonstrating the positive aspects of the tourism industry of Bangladesh and co-operate with the government to enliven this nascent industry.
We need to create a body for providing one-stop service to extend all kinds of support to the foreign investors. We must encourage foreign investors that the tourism industry in Bangladesh -- a less trodden country -- has a lot of potential to bring healthy returns within a short period of investment.
The countries which developed their tourism industries to a satisfactory level were able todo so by attracting foreign investors to back up mega projects.
Maldives, Malaysia, Thailand, and even Brunei are glaring examples before us. We can decide on the areas and location where foreign investment can come in without any ambiguity.
At present, we need foreign investment for developing exclusive tourist zones, creating international standard hotels, motels, resorts, casinos, cable cars, lagoons, marinas, sea-aquariums, watch towers, and sea-cruising services, the list is nigh endless!
If we can attract more and more foreign investment, it can bring forth a good competition in the sub-continen, benefitting tourists in the long run.
On the other hand, the foreign investors themselves will market tourism in Bangladesh for their own businesses.
Thus, a good marketing drive and standard tourism services will enable a qualitative change in the tourism industry of Bangladesh.
We can take the initiatives mentioned above and put in a great effort in attracting foreign investment in the tourism industry of Bangladesh.