Tourism sector in the violence-torn country is bleeding terribly. Like all other national sectors, it too has for some time been counting staggering losses. Newspaper photographs and TV channel footage of deserted front desks at different hotels and motels at tourist sites are now commonplace.
In the peak season of Bangladesh tourism, these hotels and motels traditionally remain filled with domestic and overseas tourists. No sooner had two years passed than these places, and the tourist sites, began witnessing the bleak scenarios of 2013, the year that was fraught with panic, uncertainties and monetary losses in businesses and trade.
Newspapers are publishing photographs of Cox's Bazar and Kuakata beaches that poignantly tell the sad tale of these popular sites. In one photo, the otherwise crowded Cox's Bazar beach is shown as a deserted place with few people.
The beach-chairs, under colourful umbrellas, lie vacant in rows, with neighbourhood boys and girls loitering or having a noisy bath, or hawkers selling trinkets looking around aimlessly.
Almost the same pictures dot the other tourist sites across the country. The Sundarbans, a major and popular tourist site, is now reeling from the trauma of an oil spill into one of its rivers that has disillusioned many intending tourists.
A number of them are finding themselves in a quandary. They face difficulty in taking the decision if it is proper to make a trip to the mangrove forest immediately after a man-made disaster.
Their situation is confounded by the latest murky developments across the country. Hundreds of middle-class tourists from Dhaka and Chittagong used to visit the forest during the winter.
With the tour operators going through the bouts of the current political violence, the Sundarban trips are fast being overshadowed by uncertainties. At least for the near future.
Tour operators in the country are passing through real bad times. The whole tourism industry is in the doldrums. A lot of them are mulling squeezing of business and staff cut temporarily. The most desperate of them have already taken drastic steps involving tour operations and finance.
The country's major tour operators have recently briefed the media on their huge monetary losses and other hazards facing their business activities. The nation has been going through a tormenting political unrest since January 05 this year.
Specifically speaking, all socio-economic activities have been grounded to a halt thanks to blockade and shutdown programmes called by political parties opposed to the present government. As has been gleaned from the assessment of their plight, a number of entrepreneurs cannot remain in business much longer if the bad times linger on.
Apart from revenue earning, tourism provides employment to scores of people, mainly youths. In terms of job creation in the service sector, tourism perhaps comes next to the healthcare and medical sector. Besides the tourism proper, the sector encompasses hotel-related hospitality, transport, on-the-spot guides and other related assignments.
Lately, with the entry of few large and medium tourist operators the sector has generously opened its door to lots of tourism professionals. Many universities and special institutions in the country provide degrees and diplomas on completion of long and short tourism courses. A pretty good number of them later opt for tourism as career. Maybe, some of them will emerge as highly skilled tour operators in the near future.
Bangladesh is a largely unexplored country when it comes to tourism. In spite of the country's small size, it comprises numerous tourism wonders -- thanks to the land's rich cultural heritage. Its history is also replete with witnesses to many crossroads in the distant past. Most importantly, the country is blessed with natural gifts.
Its myriad rivers, the large mangrove forest and the world's longest unbroken sea beach constitute the potential for it to become a great tourist spot.
As many can feel it, over the last one and a half decades, Bangladesh has been able to carve out a place in the region's tourism sector. After a long pause, overseas tourists have started trickling into the country in the recent years.
On the other hand, a few tour operators have begun expanding their activities to the neighbouring countries. Nowadays, many companies take local tourists to attractive spots in India, Nepal and Thailand.
On reaching this more or less satisfying level, a severe blow dealt to our tourism bears all the signs of it to become a limping sector once again. It will be like frittering away all the gains made in the past few years.
In the Third World countries, it's quite easy to spoil national achievements. The hydra-headed monster of graft is there -- along with faulty and bad governance.
A suicidal divisive politics, internecine factionalism and partisan egocentrism, coupled with our lately developed penchant for destruction, are out to undo everything we have achieved.
In a second manifestation of political turmoil in the recent times, the nation's economy has already started teetering towards a point of disaster. The domino effect of the catastrophe will be felt in every sector. Tourism is one of them.
The country is not too large that some areas will remain unaffected when fierce political turbulence rages in other parts of the country. This is what is happening in a lot of Sub-Saharan African countries. During the Arab Spring in 2010-11, places in some North African countries remained unscathed by political convulsions.
In the 1960s, newspaper photographs would show the spectacles of ebullient people frolicking on the beaches of Beirut, while the other parts of the city and Lebanon were being rocked by war.
For a small and densely populated country like Bangladesh, the mere thought of this turn of events makes one shudder. But the way events are spiralling out of control, we cannot confidently say it will not happen to this country as well.
shihabskr@ymail.com
Collateral damage of blockade and hartal: Tourism in the doldrums
Shihab Sarkar | Published: January 31, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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