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Fallout of Hartals, Blockades

Bandarban tourist spots wear deserted look in peak season

Sanjoy Kumar Barua, Bandarban
The scenic tourist spots of the district which usually remain crowded with a large number of tourists from different parts of the country during this peak time of the year, now see only a few visitors due to the ongoing hartal and blockade programmes.
Meghla, Nilanchol, Shailo Propath, Golden Temple and other tourist spots of the district wore a deserted look in the last few weeks.
Many hotels, motels and cottage owners said that, tourists cancelled their bookings due to political unrest.
"Tourism business in the district badly suffered during the last several months as different political parties called hartals and road blockade programmes," said Humayun Ahmed, managing director of the Parjatan motel and also president of residential hotel owners association in the district.
"Our motel and all the cottages were fully booked. But a large number of tourists did not turn up due to political unrest in the last few months", he added.
Manik Biswas, owner of 'Four Star' hotel, said, "Ithas become difficult to continue our business even after minimising the number of our staff as we now do not have sufficient income to run the trade."
Memong Marma, an official of Meghla Parjatan Complex, said, "We are going through a very tough time. We could not manage to sell more than 100-150 tickets a day throughout the recent months to the visitors whereas earlier we sold around 1500-2000 daily
in the peak session".
"I could manage to sell textile items worth Tk. 500-1000 daily at our shop whereas it was around Tk 5000-10000 a day last year," said Sumon Dey, a salesperson at a local clothes shop in the district.
"Poor presence of visitors in the district has made us frustrated this season. People are not coming from distant areas fearing political unrest," said Sirajul Islam, general
secretary of the District Hotel Owners Association.
District superintendent of police Devdas Bhattacharya said, "We beefed up security at the tourist spots although the number of visitors from home and abroad are not upto the expectation in the recent time".
"Most visitors now think of industrial safety due to the unrest", he added.