Tourism sector limping for lack of research data, information: Experts

Kamrun Nahar Despite passing a successful year, country's tourism sector is feared to face a major setback in the planning process of its development in 2013 due to lack of research data and information on the tourists, said experts. They also apprehend political unrest as one of the factors to hinder the growth of the sector in the last year of the government though apparently the sector is shown to have got top priority economic sector. "The year 2012 had been much better for the tourism sector. We had 15 to 20 per cent increase in our business last year," Mr Taufiq Rahman, chief executive of Journey Plus, a tourism company told the FE. He said it is hard to tell the exact number of the arrival of international tourists as there is no research data on it. But it is said more than 0.3 million tourists came to Bangladesh in 2011 which included leisure tourists, students, non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs), business travellers, visit friends and relatives (VFR), sports tourists and MICE, Taufiq added. Though Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) has taken up some positive initiatives in recent times like attending international tourism fairs, lack of research initiative was the main failure on the part of the government. "From marketing point of view, I see lack of research and trained manpower, especially tourist guide as major challenges in 2013 which will hinder any strategic plan for the sector for the next five years," he said. "Another problem that we may face is political unrest," Taufiq said. According to the industry insiders, a country must have data and information of the total number of tourist arrival, type of tourists, country -wise tourist arrival, total arrival share of various countries, average length of stay, average expenditure, type of services tourists receive during their stay, the regions they stay and the rate of concentration etc. Syed G Qadir, a member of Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB), also blamed the unpredictable future on the lack of proper information and research on tourism sector, ultimately hampering proper planning for the development of the sector, especially investment. "We do not know where we are heading in the sector as there is no research and data. If we knew, we could decide on our investment. The country could also think which market they will take care of," he said. He said the situation was better in 2012 but 2013 is not predictable as the number of group tourists has gone down in recent years due to the global economic fallout. "Group enquiry has slowed down now and they have been turned into individual tourists because of the economic meltdown in Europe. Besides, the persons who used to avail services from star hotels in Bangladesh earlier now prefer mid-range hotels," Qadir said. He said sometimes unilateral decisions are needed if necessary for the development of the tourism sector as it was in the case of Sri Lanka. "Inbound tourists will be less in 2013 because of the political unrest but flow of outbound and domestic tourists will increase as people will walk out of the country and home because of the tense situation here," he said. Maksudul Hasan Khan, chairman of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC), said though research data and information are very important for planning of any sector, it has so far got less priority in case of Bangladesh. "If there is wrong data, planning and budgeting will be wrong. It is applicable not only for tourism but for every sector. But we still could not prioritise it," he said. He informed BPC was not getting proper information on the arrival of foreign tourists for the last several years from Special Branch (SB). But the corporation has again asked SB to provide the number of international tourists only coming every year which will be helpful for the government to plan, he added. "The growth of foreign tourist (including all) arrival was very good as more than 0.4 million tourists arrived. But the growth of domestic tourist turnout is outstanding which was 11 per cent in 2012 encouraging the corporation to plan more for them," he said.