Every year on an average one million Bangladeshi tourists are going abroad spending a lot of money in foreign currencies, according to sources with local tour operators.
Against this large number of outbound tourists, less than 50 thousand are coming in, the sources said.
Toufiq Uddin Ahmed, president of the Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB), said the number of outbound tourists going to India, Thailand and Malaysia was more than 700,000. The remaining 300 thousand were going to other Asian, European, Middle East and Western countries.
Mr. Ahmed said the number of Bangladeshis going to India every year on tourist visas was more than 500 thousand.
According to the Malaysian High Commission in Bangladesh, they issued 135 thousand tourist visas last year and the Thai embassy sources said they issued 85 thousand visas.
An office bearer of the TOAB said if every outbound tourist spends $ 200, then the total amount of money spent amounts to Tk 16 billion.
According to another tour operator source, Dubai has restricted visa issuance and unless there are some exceptional cases, it is not possible to obtain tourism visas there.
He said the number of Bangladeshi outbound tourists going to Nepal was increasing, as no visa was required for the purpose. Toufiq Rahman, director of the TOAB, said: "As per our immigration data, the total inbound visitors in 2012 were 594 thousand and in 2013 it was 540 thousand."
He said apart from arrival of visitors from India, Pakistan and other countries for meeting family members and relatives, the number of genuine holidaymakers would not be more than 50 thousand.
The director of the tour operators' association said: "We do not have the exact official data on the inbound holidaymakers, but the number is high."
He said: "As we, the tour operators, deal with the foreign tourists, we have the idea about the number of genuine inbound holidaymakers. The number will not be more than 40 thousand per year."
Though the official statistics shows the total arrivals are more than 550 thousand, actually most of them are coming from India, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries for business, job and family purposes.
According to the above data, the outbound tourists are 20 times the number of inbound tourists and every year people are spending a lot of money abroad.
If every year 50 thousand inbound tourists are there in Bangladesh and if every guest spends at least $200, then the local income from the sector will rise to Tk 800 million, which is far lower than the outflow of money.
Despite having the world's largest beach, mangrove forests, hills, historical sites, resorts and many other attractions, the number of inbound tourists was frustrating, an operator said.
He said Bangladesh was failing to brand the country in the area of tourism.
He said many inbound tourists were confused about the tourism branding in West Bengal and in Bangladesh.
West Bengal brands theirs as Beautiful Bengal and in Bangladesh it is Beautiful Bangladesh.
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