The Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) claimed on Tuesday that the target to attract one million tourists to the country will be achieved by the end of this year.
The target was set during the announcement of 2016 as tourism year.
In 2017, the number of inbound tourists was about 0.73 million, the board authority said referring to the data of the immigration department.
But the board has no data regarding the number of outbound tourists, BTB Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jahangir Hossain said at a press conference in the city.
The national tourism organisation also claimed that the situation has improved much in terms of image crisis of the country after the Holey Artisan attack as per the feedback of the tour operators.
The BTB organised the press conference ahead of the World Tourism Day 2018 to be celebrated on Thursday.
The theme of this year's tourism day is 'Tourism and the Digital Transformation'.
Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister AKM Shahjahan Kamal also spoke at the press conference.
He said Bangladesh is one of the fastest-growing tourist destination countries in South Asia.
According to the 2018 data of World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the contribution of travel and tourism sector to the national income was Tk 427.5 billion in 2017, accounting for 2.2 per cent of the GDP. Travel and tourism sector generated 1.8 per cent of the total direct employment and 3.8 per cent indirect employment, he said.
About poor performance of the tourism sector compared to other South Asian countries, BTB CEO Jahangir Hossain said there is a legal framework for tourism industry which will help reach the target very soon.
But there is a lack of state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure where the country should work more, he added.
"We will prepare a master plan for the tourism sector focusing on what project and programmes we should undertake. We have appointed a world renowned firm who will prepare a roadmap within the next one and a half year," he said.
The BTB and Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) have taken up various programmes involving Tk 3.0 million to observe the World Tourism Day, the BTB authority said.
[email protected]
