Global rankings seldom give a rosy image of Bangladesh in front of the international community, be it in the most liveable cities in the world index, or the global university rankings.
These rankings tend to put red flags in our national consciousness, and it is about time something changed. The recently released Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019, published by the World Economic Forum, has caught the attention of the tourism industry, and the rankings give an unflattering image of the country.
The World Economic Forum, if you may remember, quite emphatically dubbed Bangladesh as one of the rising Asian Tigers in 2017. So, although the veracity of such global rankings are sometimes passionately debated amongst different interest groups, we would do well to understand the context behind these studies, and see what we can learn, before rejecting them right off the bat, shifting gears towards polemic.
So the big news first: Bangladesh ranked 120 amongst 140 countries, which were considered for this report. We can take solace in the fact that it is a significantly better position in comparison to the liveable cities of the world index (where Dhaka ranked third from the bottom); in this ranking we are ahead of fellow LDCs like Chad, Yemen, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
It is also a strong reality check to see Bangladesh sitting at the foot of the table if you compare it to the other countries in South Asia: India (34), Sri Lanka (77), and Nepal (102), all are ahead of Bangladesh where Pakistan sits at the bottom with a ranking of 121 in this region.
But why should we care about the travel and tourism industry at all? Anyone interested in the country’s economy knows that the RMG industry is the leading export earning sector with a significant 11.16% contribution to the national GDP.
The travel and tourism industry, on the other hand, contributes a paltry 2.2%. These numbers only show us the current picture, which is fairly dismal from a travel industry perspective, but looking at this number will not give anyone the prescience that one needs to develop -- to see the forest behind the trees, so to speak.
With international tourist arrivals reaching 1.4 billion in 2018 -- two years ahead of the projections made by the World Tourism Organization -- the travel and tourism industry will keep driving global connectivity. That year also marked the seventh year in a row where the growth of tourism exports (+4%) exceeded that of the merchandise exports (+3%).
Experts are predicting that by 2030 -- a watershed year due to the official closing year of the Sustainable Development Goals -- the number will be just shy of 2 billion. Travel and tourism as a global industry has flourished in the last few years, and its contribution to global GDP (currently at 10%) is expected to rise by as much as 50% over the next decade.
Currently, Bangladesh enjoys a very small share of this proverbial pie, with international tourist arrivals per year standing at 125,000 and travel and the tourism industry creating 1.18 million jobs, which is 1.9% of the total employment market.
These numbers, however, could act as opportunity areas to grow, rather than keeping us locked in a limbo of never ending discussions around having a well-defined tourism policy and nebulous options of investment in the sector.
The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report suggests as such: Infrastructure development is a crucial indicator of success if a country wants to develop a robust brand around its national heritage and culture.
Because in contrast with the overall positive growth in numbers and contribution to GDP, growth in tourism-friendly infrastructure -- roads, ports, airports, and hotel accommodation, for example -- has languished at only 1.4%.
So it is somewhat, albeit in a little twisted manner, reassuring to see that the whole world is trying to solve this problem and we are not the only ones who have not figured out a solution yet! Spain, which has claimed the top spot in the index, has invested millions of euros in the past decade on updating roads, railways, and airports to complement its natural and cultural resources.
If Bangladesh decides to increase its investment in tourist service infrastructure, one of the areas we have been quite accurately shown to lag behind in the report, the overall tourism experience is bound to improve.
A strong travel and tourism industry will not only work to diversify Bangladesh’s exports, but will also create new jobs for the 2.2 million young people who are entering the employment market every year.
We are standing at an inflection point in today’s world, where we are witnessing momentous changes in the way business, technology and industry is evolving. The rapidness of the change has compelled people to see this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution -- a time which is going to change the very fabric of our society in terms of how we perceive different industries, among other things.
As the world is bracing itself for a future where automation and the breakneck pace of growth in artificial intelligence technology can make millions of jobs obsolete, it is always a fair bet to assume that our collective wanderlust and curiosity to know the unknown will not die down.
The travel and tourism industry could be the centrepiece of that movement, and it needs the right investments from both public and private sector to help Bangladesh move in with gusto into the 21st century investment climate.
Sabrina Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the American International University - Bangladesh who teaches and researches on the tourism industry.
