Although political stability has returned in the country as political parties have refrained themselves from violence, the tourism sector in Khagrachhari is yet to get back to its normal shape.
This year, businesspersons do not have much hope as they incurred huge losses in the last three months for lack of tourists.
Now, they are waiting for the normal flow of native as well as foreign tourists, which they have been witnessing year after year and hoping that they would be able to recoup the loss if tourists start coming to the district soon.
The sector was almost tourist less in the last three months because of political unrest.
District Administration sources said there were 40 different types of hotels, motels and restaurants in the district headquarters and these are able to accommodate at least 20,000 tourists, including foreigners.
All of the hotels, motels, local handicrafts and tourism related businessmen earn more than Tk5 crores from the sector in a year. All of the hotels, motels and restaurants earned more than Tk1.5 crore in the last year.
Managing Director of luxurious Hotel Gairing, Ananta Bikash Tripura said numbers of tourists had increased in the last two weeks.
“We got few native tourists this year while presence of foreign tourists is not satisfactory,” he said, adding that the government should relax restrictions on the movement of foreign tourists in the hilly district, otherwise not much business can be done.
Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, Khagrachhari district unit Manager Alok Bikash Chakma said they had earned Tk53 lakhs in the 2012-2013 financial year.
This year, they got only 1,323 tourists, who mainly visited the district for official purposes. He said both from residential and dining sides, they had earned only Tk7 lakh whereas the expenditure of their organisation, including salary of the staff, was around Tk12 lakh.
“This year our target is to earn Tk80 lakh, but it seems we may not reach our destination because of tourists’ shortage,” he added.
