& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

TOURISM

The weekend getaway

Sayeda Akter
For most of the week Sabreena Nowsad, has been busy planning a trip with a group of 17 friends to the Jamuna Resort, near Jamuna Bridge to spend the weekend.
“We never really get a chance to meet, so we have planned a get together this weekend along with our families in a place away from our office and homes,” she said. Once they get to the resort mobile phones will be switched off, she added emphatically.
Sabreena, an office worker from Dhaka, is not alone in searching for peace and quiet at the weekend. Increasingly Bangladesh's urban middleclass is discovering the pleasures of domestic tourism, finding that relaxing and affordable breaks can be had without having to pay the prices needed for a foreign trip.
As the number of tourists has grown so has the infrastructure to serve them, with the number of tourist resorts increasing four-fold in the past five years. Industry experts estimate that in terms of turnover, the resort sector is worth aroundTkl 00 crore a year.
"A resort, provides'accommodation, but it also provides leisure activities, such as different kinds of sports ranging from swimming, football, cricket, tennis to picnic spots, boating and cinema for the guests,” said Kazi Wahid UI Alam, tourism expert and editor of Bangladesh Monitor.
He said the major development of resorts started around five years ago supported by the changing habits of the urban
middle classes, but also by the country's expanding corporate sector that started to arrange meetings and workshops outside the workplace.
Currently there are around 20 resorts in the country and all of them have established in private initiatives, among them at least 12 resorts are open to the public.
The resorts, such as Jamuna and Elenga close to Jamuna Bridge, FH Castle outside Dhaka, Royal Resort in Tangail, Blue Marine in St. Martin, Seagull in Cox's Bazar, Zastate and Nazim Garh in Sylhet are all doing good trade, offering inclusive holidays to their clients.
ANM Shahjahan, project manager of Jamuna resort, said they have 110 rooms for accommodation and different kinds of sports arrangement along with conferencing facilities.
He said when they started in 2005 they didn't expect to have large numbers of guests throughout the year, but the average occupancy rate has now reached around 80 percent with peak season being between October and April.
Rezaul Raihan, general manager of Blue Marine resort in St. Martin Island, also said occupancy rates remain high, even outside high season, as corporate and group booking were strong.
The success of the business is now attracting investors from abroad. Shafique Alam Mehdi, chairman of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC), the national tourism organization, said the investors from UAE, Japan, Australia and Malaysia are looking for large plots of
land to establish tourist resorts in Bangladesh.
Last month for example, Ras Al Khaima Investment Authority (Rakia) sought large chunks of land in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar to establish a TourismTownship.
"They are interested in one of the islands in Cox's Bazar area to develop an exclusive tourist resort,” said the BPC chairman.
But not every venture has been a success. For example some of government's initiatives in Cox's Bazar and Rangamati failed, with industry experts blaming poor publicity and marketing strategies.
Such failures are unlikely to deter the current wave of investment in the sector. One of the most recent examples is Nazim Gahr, built on hillock in Sylhet. It started operation in October 2007 and is already achieving a 75 percent occupancy during the off-season, according to its owners.
"When we started in our own native village, it was backed by a observation that people are now comfortable traveling inside the country instead of going to Malaysia or Singapore," said Nazim Farhan Choudhury, owner of the resort.
He said presently the resort is small with only 14 rooms, but it will start full operation with another 30 rooms by the end of this year.
“I don't think that we will lose out in this business, as we are getting more guests and more new investors in the sector. The future is bright" added Farhan.
sayeda@thedailystar.net