Developing sustainable tourism

The World Tourism Day, celebrated each year on September 27, appears to have passed rather listlessly. In fact, tourism is yet to adequately develop as a sector in the country. So far as its attractions for foreign tourists are concerned, the potential recognised immense by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), largely remains untapped by both government and private agencies here. Even collaborative ventures failed to take off mostly because of conditions not conducive enough for tourism development. Being hospitable is not enough when social security is questionable because of overall law and order situation. Then road or rail communication proves pitifully inadequate, substandard and inordinately time-consuming. A journey from Dhaka to any of the tourist spots located in the country's south-east, north-east, south or south-west or north takes 12 to 18 hours whereas a decent communication system should have brought the journey time down to five to seven hours at best.

How the sector is officially treated is best explained by a report carried in a Bangla contemporary. The report claims that the Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) even does not maintain records on the arrival of foreign tourists. Only an intelligence branch maintains, for reasons understandable, such records. Funnily, they treat any foreigner landing in this country - no matter if s/he visits the country for business and academic purposes or to attend seminars or workshops - as a tourist. Well, they argue that foreigners coming to this country spend money and that qualifies them to be tourists. Really? At times experts, academics, artistes and entertainers are invited. Not only some organisations or institutions bear all their expenses but at times, they take away a substantial amount of honorarium/fee with them. One wonders how any organisation estimates the amount of money earned by travel and tourism. Last year's figure, as given, is Tk 222.60 billion which is 2.1 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). One understands that political turmoil heavily slashed the sector's contribution to the GDP last year. The projection by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) for Bangldesh's internal tourism alone is much higher with a 7.0 per cent growth to Tk 396.70 billion this year.

If this is the case, it surely reflects how Bangladeshi people are catching up with the new trend of family outing. One of the reasons for people getting out on holidays is accumulation of wealth. A sizeable segment of people here have enough money to spend on such pastimes. What is needed is to inculcate a responsible tourism culture. To do that the organisations - public or private - now in their infancy must first of all know how best to develop such a culture. Tourism is but a suicidal venture if it is not sustainable. The focus is now on green or eco-tourism where local communities are involved so that the tourism sites with their flora and fauna are not overly commercialised for their fast decline and destruction. Bangladesh has to be extra cautious in this regard because it is a small country and at the receiving end of the climate change.