New research by Forbes Advisor has ranked Dhaka the sixth riskiest city on earth for tourists. However, Dhaka was never a great tourist attraction to be shocked by this poor ranking by an international rating body. True, it has been notorious for its dreadful traffic, poor air quality, not so enviable infrastructure and other features that cannot be called ideal for drawing many tourists from across the world. But there was also never any serious attempt from the government's tourism department to make Dhaka with its long history and rich culture a place worth visiting by sightseers from home and abroad. Nevertheless, unlike some other South Asian cities that draw a large number of tourists despite their poor reputation for high incidence of crime, Dhaka was considered at least a safe place for visitors. But if one is to believe the new research by Forbes Advisor, Dhaka has now lost its earlier reputation as a safe place for tourists. Now, let's take a look at the metrics used to conclude that Dhaka is not so safe a city for visitors. The factors that Forbes analysis
considered to assess safety features of a city included crime, healthcare quality and risks of natural disasters. The score points ascribed to the safety factors range from 0 to 100. The higher the score of a city on this measuring scale, the riskier it is for tourists, while lower the points earned on the score card, safer is the country for tourists. Singapore, an Asian city, could beat, by the Forbes Advisor standard, the traditional European competitors and make it to the top followed by Tokyo, Toronto, Sydney, Zurich, Copenhagen, Seoul, Osaka, Melbourne and Amsterdam. On the Forbes Advisor's safety yardstick, these 10 countries, out of the 60 it assessed, are the safest destinations for tourists. And the most unsafe city on this scale is Caracas, the capital of the South American nation, Venezuela, as it scored 100 out of 100. As mentioned before, Bangladesh is the sixth most unsafe country by scoring 89.50 out of 100.
Such risk assessment of tourist spots is actually promoted by insurance companies and these valuations are also not entirely free from bias. Venezuela has a very strained political relation with the USA and, by default, with rest of the West. Naturally, fewer tourists will be willing to visit that country. Same will be the case with other low-rated countries on the Forbes Advisor's safety scale.
Even so, there is no room for complacency in the case of Bangladesh. For its score was no better even according to the study conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on travel and tourism, the result of which was released in May. It ranked last among the 19 Asia Pacific countries. Worse yet, even among the 5 South Asian countries, Bangladesh was placed at the bottom as it scored 3.19 out of 7, while India topped the South Asian list by scoring 4.25, followed by Sri Lanka (3.69), Pakistan (3.41) and Nepal (3.34).The ranking was done among 119 economies of the world to assess their travel and tourism development index for 2024. It's no surprise that Bangladesh earned 109th place among those 119 countries assessed in the Travel and Tourism Development Index.
Despite the fact that Bangladesh's overall performance was poor on both Forbes Advisor's and WEF's yardsticks, it still fared very well at least in relation to one area of the latter's (WEF's) assessment criteria. And that was about its 'Travel and Tourism (T&T) Resources' dimension. That means Bangladesh is a potential tourist destination considering its travel and tourism resources. So, what is necessary is to improve other dimensions of rating considered by the rating agencies such as 'enabling environment', 'travel and tourism (T&T) policy', 'infrastructure and services' and so on.
Dhaka deserves a better place among the great tourist spots. And it does rightfully so.
sfalim.ds@gmail.com