The first ever tourist survey result would be published next month to reveal the contribution of tourism industry to the country's economy, assessing its size and counting inbound and outbound tourists.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is all set to publish the result of the tourism satellite account (TSA) which will also show the benchmark contribution of the tourism sector to the gross domestic product (GDP).
"The report is ready for the departmental approval. They also suggested some changes. After Eid, the report will be published early next month with the changes," Shahabuddin Sarkar, deputy director of BBS, told The Financial Express.
Mr Sarkar, who is also in charge of TSA project said, "We have focused on the number of tourists in a year-inbound, outbound and domestic-value addition of the sector, employment and other related services.
The TSA measures the explicit economic contribution of tourism to the economy. The BBS prepared the account by taking all secondary data relating to the sector.
The BBS exchanged its views with all stakeholders concerned including the Tourism Board under the ministry of civil aviation and tourism.
"We've already met all stakeholders. We're now expecting to unveil the report in August," Mr Shahabuddin told the FE.
However, Zamiul Ahmed Zamil, chairman of Tour Developers Association of Bangladesh said the way survey is being conducted will not be much of use for the sector.
Shahabuddin Sarkar admitted the limitation. Saying it is a pilot project.
"We hope we will be able to conduct an extensive survey as per stakeholders' wish," he also said.
The TSA tables and data provide economic trends of tourism, especially in relation to its total output, value addition and employment, the official said.
The development of a TSA is essential for the country as there is no tourism 'industry' in the current national accounting framework.
Under the present format of System of National Accounting (SNA) of the United Nations, there is no separate head for tourism industry. Its contributions are scattered in 4-5 relevant sectors of the GDP out of 15 sectors. The tourism sector is implicitly embedded with wholesale and retail trade, hotel and restaurant, transport, storage and communication sectors of the GDP.
The BBS will base the TSA on 2011-12 financial year which officials believe that it would depict the accurate picture of the sector. "The TSA would provide a much accurate data on tourism's contribution to the economy, AKM Ashraf Uddin, another deputy director told the FE.
Besides, it would assess the value of tourism to the GDP and also ascertain the number of direct employment in tourism. Tourism is a key economic driver generating thousands of jobs in different related sectors in the country. But its separate data are not available now.
"We'll get at a glance the picture of the sector and its contribution to the GDP after introduction of the TSA," Mr Ashraf added.
