Within a few days, many of Dhaka residents will have left the capital to celebrate the Eid festival in their hometown. Most will struggle to get seats in over-crowded buses, trains, launches and even aircraft.
But not yarn trader Abul Hossain Liton. He plans to fly to Malaysia tonight with his four-member family for a week of vacation.
“Due to a hectic work schedule, I don't get enough time to take my family members for outings,” says Liton. Although he is touring abroad with family members, many others are joining their families living abroad, he adds.
This is the first such trip for the 40-year-old businessman and his family. But Liton says a number of his friends have already left the country at Eid, the greatest religious festival for Muslims.
Dhaka tour operator Asian Holiday made all arrangements for his travel to Malaysia, with his wife Shilu, 34, son Dip, 16, and daughter Audri, 10. After landing in Kuala Lumpur, they will visit Mangkai, an island popular among tourists.
Tour operators say the number of Bangladeshis travelling abroad or visiting a domestic tourism spots during a vacation like Eid is increasing gradually.
Zahirul Islam Bhuiyan, chief executive officer of Discovery Tours and Logistics, says overseas demand has increased by 20 percent this Eid. The firm will also send 50 people to Cox's Bazar and Sylhet during the festival.
Bhuiyan says his firm sends individuals or groups to Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and Thailand — but Egypt and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) are the most popular.
Group tours include those for corporate clients, such as clubs, banks, insurance and multinational companies. A corporate tour can have up to 200 travellers.
Discovery Tours and Logistics, which started in 2002 by sending a group of 200 people to China, now arranges tours abroad for 1,500 tourists every year.
Taufiq Uddin Ahmad, president of Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB), estimates that 50 tour operators in the country serve 40,000 people who are flying abroad during Eid.
He says outbound travellers tour countries such as China, Malaysia, Egypt, India, Bhutan, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and Singapore.
Ahmad says that his firm, Galaxy Holiday, is sending about 1,000 people abroad for Eid.
But many people have started to visit tourism spots in Bangladesh, he adds. Among domestic tourist spots, the favourites are Cox's Bazar, Bandarban, Rangamati and Sylhet.
Bhuiyan says tour operators play an important role in popularising both domestic and overseas travel. Many people do not have any idea what country they want to go, let alone how to research
their own travel.
"We, the tour operators, take away all the pain — from processing visas to booking hotels and transports in foreign soil to food and outings during their stay.”
Bhuiyan says the tour operators could transform the country's largely neglected and unregulated tourism sector with a little help. If the government boosted the industry it would create many jobs and earn billions in foreign exchange.
"The tourism and tours business is still in its infancy, taking small steps gradually,” he says. “But the potential is huge.”
Bhuiyan adds that people once travelled mostly on their own: "Now, because of our increasing presence, they can tour in a planned way.”
"The popularity of domestic travel spots is increasing due to proper guidance from tour operators," says Khondokar Rakibul Islam Rakib, chief executive officer of Ambassador Holidays.
His agency is sending about 100 people to Sundarbans and Cox's Bazar during the Eid vacations. "There are also enquiries about tours to
Bandarban and Sylhet," he adds.
Rakib says lack of an adequate number of hotels and motels is holding back them from sending more people on tours: "The government should come forward in this regard to exploit the huge potential of the domestic tourism."
“The authorities can also use the public-private partnership concept," adds the 54-year-old former national footballer, who played left wing for the country between 1976and 1984.
SM Shahabuddin, owner of International Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Management near the beach of Cox's Bazar, says one lakh people may travel to Cox's Bazar, the country's top tourist spot, during Eid.
Hotel owners at the world's longest unbroken seaside beach say the number of people touring Cox's Bazar during Eid has been rising for two years.
They say their business once largely banked on the country's winter season, which stretches from October to March, but the difference between peak and off-peak seasons is blurring as people come year-round.
Imran Humayun Khan, sales manager of Seagull Hotel, one of Cox's oldest posh hotels, says half of the hotel's 180 rooms are already booked for today and tomorrow.
"We expect more booking orders in the next couple of days,” he says. “But from September 11 to 16 the hotel occupancy rate is 100 percent."
"You will not find empty housing apartments around the Cox's Bazar beach area," Shahabuddin confirms. There are 70 registered hotels and over 250 unregistered hotels, motels, cottages and guesthouses in Cox's Bazar.
Mita Ahmed, a housewife in Dhaka's Mohammadpur, will travel to the hilly Bandarban district with a group of 15 that includes her two kids, husband, brothers, sisters-in-law and cousins. “Most of my close relatives cannot get together without long vacation like Eid,” she says.
“Maybe we will be away from home, but the occasion will assemble us, as some of our close relatives will join.”
fazlur.rahman@thedailystar.net