Tourism business owners say the recent killings of two foreign nationals have been a blow to the industry as many tourists of different countries have cancelled hotel bookings.
They say they were hoping for doing a good business in the upcoming winter and were expecting that a large number of foreign tourists would arrive at that time but the killings of an Italian and a Japanese citizens in less than a week have ruined prospects.
Japanese national Kunio Hoshi was gunned down in Rangpur yesterday. The murder followed the killing of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella, who was shot dead in the capital’s Gulshan area on September 28.
Hasan Monsur, chairman and founder of The Guide Tours Limited, said around 200 foreigners had cancelled their tour in Bangladesh after the two attacks.
“The tourism industry has already faced huge losses because of three years of political unrest. Just when we were being optimistic about foreign tourist arrivals in the upcoming winter, the two murders have led to a critical situation.
We doubt that even foreigners who have already arrived in the country will not get out of hotel to visit tourist destinations,” he said.
Tour operators said they might lose a host of foreign tourists, who might have planned to arrive in the winter, in the wake of last week’s warnings issued by the US, UK, Canada and Australian governments about attacks that their citizens could possibly come under while in Bangladesh.
Tour operators are getting lots of queries on how safe it will be to visit Bangladesh from prospective tourists after the murders of Hoshi and Tavella.
“We have been bombarded with queries from foreigners and we are just tired of replying to all those questions,” said Md Masud Hossain, executive director of Bengal Tours.
“I fear that if the condition does not improve, it will bring catastrophic consequences for our tourism industry.”
On condition of anonymity, a hotel manager in the capital said 50 reservations were cancelled after Tavella was shot dead.
“Around 200 bookings for October have been cancelled after Hoshi was killed in Rangpur,” he said.
Toufiq Rahman, chief executive of tour operator Journey Plus, said it was hard to even sleep for the last couple of days as prospective tourists continually inquired about security measures for foreign nationals in Bangladesh.
“Five German nationals cancelled their tour after the two attacks while some 100 foreigners are scheduled to arrive in October. As things stand, the number of bookings is unlikely to go up much in the next few months.
“The latest events appear to be convincing most of the European tourists to abandon Bangladesh as a destination of choice,” he added.
Kazi Wahidul Alam, editor of The Bangladesh Monitor, a fortnightly which focuses on tourism, said the recent alerts concerning Bangladesh issued by several countries could terribly affect the tourism business.
“No-one wants to travel to a country that will cause him to be worried. Travellers will want to come to Bangladesh only if they truly feel that this is a safe country to go to,” he said.
“Every year, up to 600,000 foreign nationals visit Bangladesh, which is of course a significant number. But if we fail to stop the recurrence of such attacks on foreign tourists, our tourism business will be ruined.”
