In these modern times, tourism & hospitality has appeared to be one of the most money grossing industries. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, demand for international tourism remained very high in the first four months of 2014. International sightseer arrivals globally have jumped up by 5%, the same rate as throughout the full year 2013. Prospects for the current peak, tourism season remains very positive with more than 460 million travellers were expected to travel in a foreign country during the May-August 2014 phase. And whilst, tourism revenue in Spain peaked to US$ 79.13 billion in 2013, then the international tourist arrivals in the Middle East are estimated to be down by 4% in turn which indicates this region has suffered a fall in tourism revenue then, though this figure should be taken with caution as it is based on limited available data for the region. It is to mark here, when Middle East has lost its' revenues from tourism sector verily at that moment outbound expenditure by tourists has lifted up more than 18% while visiting Qatar. In spite, Qatar is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world, and the country's exports of LNG, crude oil, & petroleum products provide a significant portion of government revenues but its' recently taken policies are intended to switch main revenue collection from this sector to tourism sector gradually.
This implicates for tourism sector's sustaining appearance, every country either that is developed or emerging or underdeveloped, has started formulating some sorts of policies to support & widen this sector as they have already evaluated that tourism industry has immense effect on an economy by fetching a significant amount of foreign currency in regular basis. Hence, the demand for improvement of tourism sector, across the countries has become common for luring visitors. If we look at our country Bangladesh, we discover that the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism industry to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2013 was BDT 222.6 billion (2.1% of GDP) & this is forecasted to increase by 7.7% to BDT 239.8bn in 2014. In addition, Travel & Tourism created 1,328,500 jobs directly in 2013 (1.8% of total employment) & it is forecasted to rise by 4.0% in 2014 to 1,381,500. From these phenomena it is crystal clear that how important tourism sector is for Bangladesh. But there is another side of the coin, i.e., tourist's motive of dropping poly-bags, plastic bottles or making noises, smoking here & there, cutting down & taking away coral reefs etc are causing high environmental pollutions. Unfortunately conventional government policies & private-public initiative program to aware people of this matter is not emerging to be really fruitful to now. So what would be the way to overcome this hazardous situation? May be this can be answered by the facilitation of Social Business, introduced by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.
It is well-known that seven principles of Yunus Social Business (YSB) are, firstly, it should checkmate poverty, or one or more problems i.e., edification, healthiness, technology entrance & environment, which menace people & society; moreover, it cannot aim at profit maximization. Secondly, it is required to focus on financial and economic sustainability. Thirdly, investors will get back their investment amount only and no bonus is given. Fourthly, when investment amount is paid back, its' profit stays with the business for spreading out and improvement. Fifthly, it must be environmentally sentient. Sixthly, workforce should get bazaar wage with enhanced working surroundings. Finally, one should continue it with joy. So, if we relate all the principles we start to find a remedial method to answer our question here.
As YSB is concerned about environmental issues and, on the other side, tourism is mainly carried out by travel agencies, so if there are some policies accumulated by government to promote YSB in this sector, then this will in near future cut down environmental pollution. And to promote YSB in tourism sector, government may pursue some policies like processing special tax rebate for YSB-inspired travel agencies, may ask for competition thus finance better ideas by its other organs and may regard them as green entrepreneurs thus provide them all other necessary facilities to grow. If it really happens, young and innovative minds will eventually come and take the hold of overall tourism industry of Bangladesh thus will start leading the sector one day by spreading out the business all over the country with a new brand image, which will surely prove to be copied by the entrepreneurs residing elsewhere in the world. In turn, it will lure more and more tourists which may even cross forecasted one because of Bangladesh's fresh and environment friendly tourism brand image, simultaneously which will even minimize the environmental distortions too. Yes, it can be said at last that there is truly an efficient way to expand this labour-intensive tourism sector thus to earn more foreign currencies directly and to minimize the rate of environmental distortions simultaneously, just by promoting YSB in this sector with the proper concentration of Bangladesh government. Who does not know that "a good policy has greater impact than a good project"!
The writer is a student of the Department of Economics, Shahjalal University of Science & Technology. Email: enamul.hafiz.sust@gmail.com
Tourism economics, pollution & social business
Enamul Hafiz Latifee | Published: August 16, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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