Community development through tourism

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) reported in 2013 that the travel and tourism industry in Bangladesh directly generated 1,281,500 jobs in 2012 or 1.8 per cent of the country's total employment, which put Bangladesh at 157 out of 178 countries worldwide in tourism ranking. Tourism in Bangladesh is at a developing stage. It is fast being recognised as a foreign currency earner.
The country was listed by Lonely Planet in 2011 as the "best value destination". The  World Bank says, Bangladesh, with about 160 million inhabitants on a landmass of 147,570 square kilometres, is among the most densely-populated countries in the world, with its poverty in both urban and rural areas declining by an impressive 19 percentage points in the last decade-and-a-half; the absolute number of people below the poverty line remains significant.
Against this backdrop, community development through tourism could be a great tool for poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. In a sense, tourism derived from the human tendency to migrate from one place to another. It has always imparted dynamism to the community since ancient times when primitive people started to move out of their usual habitat, often covering great distances, in search of the basic survival necessities such as food, shelter and clothing. In a word, tourism has stood beside the poorer communities. With the passage of time, tourism, with its fast evolving newer forms, has taken root in lives across the nations.
In developing countries like Bangladesh, the contribution of tourism to alleviating poverty is enormous. Its incorporation in policy-making in the countries such as Nepal and Bhutan has resulted in greater dividends with increase in their GDPs. The prospect of tourism is no longer new in Bangladesh, and yet it still remains in a formative stage, considerably far away from helping lift the country to a solvent status. Measures to reduce poverty can well be put to use through tourism in Bangladesh.
This year the World Tourism Day's theme is Tourism and Community Development.  Across the world there are many festering problems afflicting the communities. They include adolescent pregnancy, access to clean drinking water, hunger, child abuse and neglect, crime, domestic violence, drug abuse, environmental degradation, ethnic conflicts, health-related disparities, HIV/AIDS etc. Besides, there are social inequality, insufficient job opportunities, insufficient housing, transportation, inadequate emergency services, and violence. These and other problems stand in the way of desired national development. Full-scale operation of tourism can directly or indirectly deal with these problems. This year's Tourism Day theme "Tourism and Community Development", elaborates on the broader message by noting that tourism "brings to the forefront the potential that tourism has to promote new socio-economic opportunities and better livelihoods for communities around the world, while highlighting the critical role that community engagement has in advancing sustainable development" --- as has been presented as the official message of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Secretary-General Taleb Rifai. The United Nations sees community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common
problems."
The ability of the national economy to benefit from tourism depends on the availability of investment to develop the necessary infrastructure and, on its ability, to supply the needs of tourists. The book, Community Development through Tourism, authored by Sue Breeton, an Associate Professor at La Trobe University, Australia, is the bible in this regard. The book examines the development of local communities through healthy integration of community planning, business planning and, finally, tourism planning. It explores the most pertinent tourism and business theories, moving from strategic planning to community empowerment and practice. The book observes that research-based case studies can illustrate how things work in the real world for community development. For community development, all-out efforts from all stakeholders should come forth for common goals by chalking proper planning and implementation out.
While poverty alleviation remains a highly ambiguous, much-debated concept, Sue Beeton proclaims that community development through tourism is the only responsible long-term solution for managing the present-day poverty in the Third World. Bangladesh will need to recognise that the critical issue for tourism developers today is ensuring a net benefit tomorrow for the entire environment in which tourism takes place.
Tourism has become an important sector having impact on the development of a country's economy. The main benefit of tourism is the income generation through jobs. For many regions and countries it is the most important source of welfare. The potential of tourism vis-à-vis community development still remains untapped in Bangladesh. Now is the right time to think of tourism-fed development. Its benefits will act as a catalyst for the overall development in Bangladesh. Community tourism development will have the following outcomes:
l Gross Domestic Product growth
l Human resource development
l Poverty alleviation
l Originality in culture and heritage
l Development of water tourism and eco-tourism
l Development of rural livelihood
l Education and training for all
l Peace and happiness
l Promotion of local cuisine
l Women's employment etc.
Communities across the world face enormous challenges as their social, economic, and environmental resources are being depleted and destroyed. Only the sustainable development can pave the holistic way for attaining the expected goals and enhancing the quality of life for everyone in the communities. It could be possible by developing local resources to revitalise the economy, limiting waste and pollution, improving the living standard of the disadvantaged people, conserving natural resources, and promoting cooperation and efficiency. Tourism could be the main critical factor behind community development, which has been reiterated by the theme of World Tourism Day 2014.
The writer is International Hospitality TICA Scholar, Bangkok, Thailand.
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