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Robust growth in tourism forecast on port entry visa

Jasim Uddin Khan
Tour operators, travel agents and guesthouse owners see a tremendous growth in tourism sector if the government allows tourists visas on arrival at airports.
"If the government lifts visa restrictions for visitors from Europe, USA and other western countries, around 20 lakh foreign tourists will come to Bangladesh in a couple of years,” AKM Bari, managing director of MB Travels Ltd and general secretary of Association of Travel Agents Bangladesh (ATAB), said, pointing to the fact that
it requires 15 to 20 days now for a Bangladeshi visa even for an European citizen.
He wondered in such a situation how foreigners feel encouraged to tour of Bangladesh.
"But if the government allows them arrival visas many tourists who visit Tajmahal in India will come and stay in Bangladesh,” Bari said, adding that as it will reduce cost the foreigners will add a new country to their tourism diary.
Hafizul Islam, an international tour operator in Bangladesh, identified the present strict visa policy as one of the main reasons behind the foreign tourists' unwillingness to visit Bangladesh.
The government can introduce an online visa tracking
system by bringing all the land ports and airports connecting through internal network and can monitor visitor's entry and exit date and time automatically, Islam suggested.
Sadique Ahsan, president of Bangladesh Hotel and Guest House Owners Association and owner of the Hotel de Crystal Garden, said if the government formulates a tourism-friendly policy, the private sector will go for infrastructural development. According to unofficial statistics, in 2007 arrivals of foreign tourists in Bangladesh grew by 35 percent over the corresponding year, but the actual growth in the last five years is almost nil.
In the year 2007, 2 lakh 70 thousand tourists visited Bangladesh, while the number was 2 lakh in 2006. However, the number of visitors was 2 lakh 80 thousand in 2003.
Tour operators and Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) officials said the visit by foreigners to the country increased last year as many donors' representative and climate change volunteers came here to see the destruction of cyclone Sidr.
They said a sudden surge in arrivals by garment buyers also helped increase the number of tourists in the year.
When asked, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation Chairman (BPC) Shafique Alam Mehedi said the BPC will
submit a proposal with regard to arrival visa for tourists to the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation.
The government recently decided to turn BPC into National Tourism Authority soon for better exploitation of the potentials of the country's tourism sector.
According to tour operators, Bangladesh has many attractions that still remain unknown to many tourists. It has mountains, large coastline, mangroves and rain forests, marshland and island. This diversity makes Bangladesh fairly rich in flora and fauna.
According to official sources, around Tk57crore, which is 2.1 percent of the total government
expenditure, has been earmarked in the national budget of the current fiscal (2007-08) for the tourism sector.
The National Tourism Authority will be set up through the enactment of Tourism Act as the government now looks forward to complete privatisation of the prospective sector.
Two committees comprising representatives from the government and the BPC have already been formed in this regard.
The government is carrying out a survey to find out the country's unexplored tourist spots side by side modernising the existing natural areas, the BPC chairman said.
Meanwhile, worldwide tourists movement reached 898 million in 2007, according to the World Tourism Organisation.
This affiliated body of the United Nations forecast that by 2010, international tourist arrivals will reach 1 billion annually.
jasim@thedailystar.net