The government is set to unveil a mega plan aiming to host around 1.7 million foreign tourists in the country in 2021 when Bangladesh celebrates its golden jubilee of independence, a senior official said on Thursday.
He said the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism has already drafted the plan, which envisages speedy infrastructure development for promotion of tourism.
"We want to give a big boost to our tourism industry as we prepare to celebrate 50 years of our independence," civil aviation and tourism secretary Syed Mohammad Jubair told the FE Thursday.
He said: "The integrated planning for development of the country's tourism sector is now almost at its final stage."
The civil aviation ministry which has a target to earn over Tk31.97 billion in 2021, divided the entire country into eight tourism regions, a senior official said.
He said multi-modal communication to connect prime spots under tourist regions-Sylhet, Mymensingh, Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, Chittagong Hill Tract, islands and coastal areas, Khulna and Sundarban and Dhaka --will be established on a priority basis.
The integrated planning has put forwarded a large number of proposals to remove obstacles to the growth of the country's tourism sector, he added.
A report of the World Travel Tourism Council (WTTC), published recently, said Bangladesh Travel and Tourism economy is ranked number 94 in absolute size worldwide, 170 in relative contribution to national economies and 31 in long-term (10-year) growth.
It said Bangladesh's tourism industry will contribute around 4.0 per cent or over $ 6.39 billion to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2018 if the government of the country can develop infrastructure.
Civil aviation secretary said legal frame work is being worked out to help private sector travel operators to get involved in tourism sector.
He said it is one of those sectors of the country which is immensely contributing to employment generation and export earning directly and indirectly.
WTTC's estimate said export earning from local and international visitors and tourism goods are expected to generate 3.4 per cent or $543.7 million of total exports in 2008, growing to 1099.3 million (5.3 per cent) of total external trade in 2018.
Apart from this, it said, the contribution of the sector to employment is expected to rise from over 2,065,000 in 2008, 3.1 per cent of total employment or one in every 32.0 jobs to 2,791,000 jobs, 3.2 per cent of total employment or one in every 31.7 jobs by 2018.
