Foreign tourist inflow in BD still poor

Inflow of foreign tourists in Bangladesh remains much lower than potential - mainly due to lack of required infrastructure, complex visa regime, and limited promotion, sector insiders said.
They also said the current trend of inbound visitors is yet to reach the pre-pandemic level, indicating that the Covid-induced crisis is still haunting the sector.
In a recent brief report, Statista, a Germany-based online platform for data gathering and visualisation, revealed that Bangladesh is expected to receive 0.21 million foreign tourists in this calendar year (2023), slightly up from 0.2 million in the previous year.
According to its calculation, Bangladesh received 0.32 million tourists in 2019, which fell sharply to 60,000 in 2020, and 1,17,000 in 2021.
It also estimated that the country's inbound tourists will increase to 0.32 million in 2028 following ups and downs.
However, despite a request from this correspondent, the report author did not elaborate the estimation.
According to data of the Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB), the country drew a constantly increasing number of foreign holidaymakers between 2016 and 2019. In 2019, the country attracted 6,21,131 foreign tourists. The figure declined to 1,81,518 in 2020, and 1,35,186 in 2021.
However, the tour operators said the figures available with the government organisations do not properly reflect the real number of holidaymakers, as many foreigners come to Bangladesh for different purposes with tourist visa.
"We're requesting the authorities concerned to take initiatives for identifying the real holidaymakers, so that country can take good initiatives in this regard," Syed Shafat Uddin Ahmed Tomal, a tourism sector entrepreneur, told the FE.
The pandemic has left a serious impact on the foreign tourists' interest in Bangladesh, said Mr Tomal, managing director of Market n-Trance Holidays.
"As a tour operator I give special attention to bring foreign tourists in Bangladesh, but there are different shortcomings to do it," he added.
Sources said foreign tourists mostly visit sites in Cox's Bazar, the Sundarbans and Sylhet.
Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB) President Shiblul Azam Koreshi said the country's inbound tourism started rebounding from last year after recovering from the coronavirus fallout.
He, however, said: "We seriously lack in terms of promoting our tourist destinations to the foreigners."
Even some small African countries are duly promoted in different programmes aired on the global media platforms like BBC and CNN.
"We also need to do country-specific promotion, especially among the populous nations like India and China, which can be a game changer for Bangladesh as a tourist destination."
Another issue is introduction of electronic visa for tourists. The nationals of 61 countries now get on-arrival visa, which should be increased further.
"Facility to obtain visa without hassle is a must to attract more and more tourists," Mr Koreshi added.

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