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New tourism law to ensure eco compliance

Sayeda Akter
THE government is set to form a new law for the tourism sector to strictly monitor the registration process of tourism services providers and to offer high quality services.
The proposed law, likely to be named as Tourism Registration and Control Act 2012, will ensure that the service providers are registered properly with the relevant authority and are complying with the government's environment protection directives.
“The government wants to reorganise the registration process to make it easy for the service providers," said Akhtaruzzaman Khan Kabir, chief executive officer of Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB).
In July, the civil aviation and tourism ministry formed a high-power committee consisting of all stakeholders, including government officials, owners and operators of hotels, motels, resorts, restaurants, tourist coaches and beverage sellers.
The committee held a meeting early this month, and asked its stakeholders to add proposals on their respective sectors, as the body is now working to prepare a draft of the law, said the BTB chief.
“We will hold few more meetings of this kind, and hope to finalise the framework by the yearend."
“The law will also bring all the infrastructures that were built without taking prior permissions under its jurisdiction." He said the projects violating the environment protection directives will lose their approval.
Many of the hundreds of hotels, motels, resorts and restaurants that were built in recent years did not take prior permissions, said Kabir.
"We often get complaints about low standards of services, but due to alack of a unified law we cannot take actions against them.”
Kabir said genuine and ethical entrepreneurs do not have to worry about any harassments and difficulties. The new law will combine several scattered laws, and reduce the complexities of
establishing a new service in the sector, he said.
In 2011, the travel and tourism sector accounted forTk 18,250 crore or 2.2 percent of Bangladesh's gross domestic product, according to a report published by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The amount is expected to rise by 7.3 percent to Tk 19,590 crore in 2012 and by 6.1 percent to Tk 35,370 crore by 2022, according to the London-based institute.
The sector created 13.29 lakh jobs directly in 2011 or 1.9 percent of the country's total employment. It will generate another 13.77 lakh jobs this year and 18.4 lakh jobs by 2022, according to the report.
The government formed the National Tourism Policy of Bangladesh in 1992, which was amended and transformed into the National Tourism Policy 2010.
Kabir said the new law will also help increase the revenue further, as it would ensure improved services.