Bangladesh falls behind in tourism [Video]

The Dhaka Times Desk Bangladesh is lagging behind in tourism. According to a recently published report, Bangladesh is one of the most backward countries in the world in terms of tourist attraction.

Not only that, Bangladesh is lagging behind its neighboring countries in South Asia. The position of Bangladesh is 125 out of 136 countries in world tourism. Among the 5 countries of South Asia, Bangladesh is the lowest i.e. 5th. Even Pakistan, a country plagued by suicide bombings, is a step up!

The report titled 'Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017' of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has recently revealed such a disappointing picture of the tourism sector in Bangladesh. This report is prepared on the basis of 14 factors or indicators such as how safe a country is as a tourist attraction, how well are the infrastructure facilities, how developed is the airport, how is the quality of the housing system in that country. The highest score for each index was 7, and the lowest score was 1. A country's overall score is determined by averaging the scores on each indicator. The ranking is done accordingly.

It is known that the WEF publishes this report every two years on the travel and tourism industry in the world. The situation was almost the same in 2015. Bangladesh was ranked 127 out of 141 countries in the latest published report at that time.

The Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a private research institute, has worked with Bangladesh-related data to prepare the report. The report uses the opinions of executives of 87 domestic and foreign companies that have businesses in Bangladesh and have assets of more than 10 crore rupees.

CPD research director Khandkar Golam Moazzem told the media that there is a major lack of infrastructure in Bangladesh to attract foreign tourists. Bangladesh does not have any specific policy on tourist attraction according to class. These deficiencies of Bangladesh in tourism have come up in the report.

According to that report, Spain is number 1 in the world in terms of tourist attractions. The country's score is 5.43. On the other hand, Bangladesh's score at number 125 is 2.9. Other countries in the top ten are France, Germany, Japan, UK, USA, Australia, Italy and Canada respectively. India ranks best in South Asia in terms of tourist attraction. India is at number 40 in the list. Moreover, Bhutan is at number 78, Nepal is at 103 and Pakistan is at number 124.

On the basis of 14 indicators, Bangladesh is ranked 125th, first of all is the business environment in Bangladesh. The overall position of Bangladesh is 104 in this index. The index highlights the obstacles faced by foreign investors in starting a business in Bangladesh.

According to the report, Bangladesh ranks 113 in terms of airport infrastructure facilities. Among them, the position of Bangladesh is 134 in the airport density index. This index shows the number of airports in a country per 1 million people. As such, the passenger pressure is very high at the airport of Bangladesh.

On the other hand, Bangladesh is number 133 in the infrastructure index for tourists. Bangladesh ranks lowest in tourist accommodation or hotel quality index. Bangladesh is at number 135 in this index. That is, in the second place towards the end. The report also highlighted the plight of the rental car service when traveling to Bangladesh. Bangladesh is ranked 129 out of 136 countries in this index.

According to the information of the report, the development of the tourism industry is absolutely insignificant in Bangladesh. The overall position of Bangladesh is 127 in this index. Bangladesh is at number 111 in the government's priority sector index. That is, the development of the tourism sector is not in the priority list of the Bangladesh government. Bangladesh ranks between 120 and 130 in indicators such as tourist attraction promotion, data storage, and branding.

The WEF report also highlighted the lack of security for tourists in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is at number 123 in this index. The security index has also come up with the issue of reliability of police service in Bangladesh. In this regard, Bangladesh is at number 117. In other words, tourists are not very confident in taking the help of the police.

According to official estimates, more than 5 lakh tourists came to Bangladesh in 2016. In the previous year it was like 4.5 lakh. At the same time, 729,000 tourists came to neighboring Nepal, while nearly 9 million tourists came to India.

In this regard, the businessmen of the tourism sector said that it is not reasonable to call those who come to Bangladesh for business purposes as tourists. However, disagreeing with such attitude of the businessmen, Ziaul Haque Hawladar, Manager of Public Relations Department of Bangladesh Tourism Corporation, told the media that a foreign citizen, regardless of whether he comes to Bangladesh, is considered as a tourist.

All in all, it appears that despite the potential in Bangladesh, the tourism sector has not been taken forward. In order to advance this sector, the government has to take several important decisions. Then this tourism sector will be exposed to the outside world like the culture of our country, on the other hand we can earn a lot of foreign currency from this sector.

Watch Banglavision's video: How beautiful is the natural environment of this country
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