Tourism is one of the single largest commercial activities in the world. It is the second largest sector for employment generation. It is one of the export diversification as UNWTO calls “A tourist is an export”. The United States of America is the highest revenue receiving country in the world. In 2014, their earnings from international tourists amounted to US$177.2 billion. This success came not only with the efforts of tour operators and travel agents. Their Government officials, working in their Embassies around the glove, are so serious and aware of the benefits of tourism that they work for sending more visitors to their country.
Mentionable, the American Embassy staffs in Dhaka held, so far, five meetings with the leaders of ATAB – two in Dhaka and one in Sylhet, one in Chittagong and a briefing meeting with the staffs of all the IATA travel agencies in Officers Club in Dhaka. If they can give so much importance to a market like Bangladesh how much importance they give to other markets. Is there any instance of our diplomats meeting with the travel agents or tour operators of any country to promote our tourism? No, there is no such instance perhaps.
Let us take the initiative of Indonesian Ambassador:
The Indonesian government prompted by their Ambassador in Dhaka declared on-arrival visa for Bangladeshi tourists via two airports – Jakarta & Bali (Denpasar). Can we think of any such initiative by our ambassadors? Perhaps not. I cannot resist my temptation of citing another incidence by the Thai ambassador in Dhaka. In 2010, ATAB (Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh) decided to hold its annual marketing conference in Thailand. While the preparation for holding the conference was in progress, the then President of ATAB, late M .A. Muhaimin Saleh met the Thai Ambassador at a meeting. He just casually told the Ambassador about holding the conference with 110 members in Pataya and Bangkok. The Ambassador took the matter very seriously and asked the details of preparation and accommodation in Bangkok. He was also informed that the delegates in the conference would be staying in three star hotels. He asked about the tour operator who would be handling the whole programme. After knowing all these details the ambassador told Saleh that hotels in both the places would be upgraded from 3 stars to 4 stars and two more cultural visits would be included as gesture of good will to the travel agents of Bangladesh. The two cultural visits were – one the famous Alkajar show and other the Dolphin show. The Entry fee for the Alkajar show is U.S. $ 100. Think of the salesmanship attitude of the diplomats of other countries and the bureaucratic attitude of our diplomats. To see the success of tourism it needs whole hearted and concerted efforts from all the people starting from the chief Executive of the country.
In 2008, Dhaka University, on the occasion of the 50th year of the publication of African Novelist Chinua Achebe’s Nobel winning novel, the “Falling Apart” organised an International Literary Conference. In this conference, 4 noted professors from Jadobpur University were invited but unfortunately they could not attend the conference due to reluctance and non cooperation of our Deputy High Commission in Calcutta.
In Bangladesh, the sector has not yet received due attention from the concerned people. Though today, the global business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles. Tourism has become one of the major players in international commerce. For many developing countries tourism is one of their main sources of income. The high-ups of the government are nowadays talking about tourism but without any definite sense of direction for the sector to flourish. Since tourism is a commercial activity and a tourist is an export as declared by UNWTO, it must be handled like any other commercial sector of exports. So, “Reciprocity” should not come in the way of development of tourism.
Tourism helps establish people-to-people relation. Bangladesh has a very negative image all over the world. Even our greatest and closest neighbors, the Indian people know little about Bangladesh. The tourists who come to Bangladesh are always moved by the hospitality of the Bangladeshi people. They come with negative image of the country and leave the country with totally opposite views. These people will be permanently our friends and our good will ambassador in their home country. Let not reciprocity spoil the opportunity given by tourism to boost export diversification, poverty reduction and building a positive image of the country. It can be used as a means to strengthen bilateral diplomatic relation through people to people contact. We all remember the famous ping pong diplomacy between the U.S.A. and China. Tourism also played an important role to melt the ice between US- China relations. China in 1978 granted U.S. Citizens on-arrival visa though there was no such reciprocal gesture from the U.S. administration. The Chinese action was prompted from a commercial point of view not from the point of view of reciprocity. The Chinese leader Deng Jiao Ping took a revolutionary decision to grant on-arrival visa to almost all the countries of the world in 1978 starting from USA — its greatest foe, to Bangladesh, a poverty ridden country at that time. The single purpose of the decision was to earn foreign currency not to practice reciprocity.
The Bangladesh government has also taken a very pragmatic and time-befitting decision by granting on-arrival visa to the citizens of about 70 countries of the world. Surprisingly India having a population of 1300 million is not included in the on-arrival visa recipient country list. Bangladesh is strategically in a very favorable position to reap the benefit of tourism. India is a neighboring country with boarder in all three sides. If on arrival visa can be given to them about 5000 visitors will walk into Bangladesh daily. If they spend US$200 each, our daily income from them may amount to US$ 1.0 million making it US$365 million a year. The yearly earnings from Indian tourists may stand at US$600 million to US$ 1.0 billion if we can efficiently handle the Indian market. We must keep in mind that reciprocity must not stand in the way of our achieving tourism target and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). It will be very relevant to mention that India became the second highest outbound tourism market in the world sending 23 million tourists outside India in 2017.
In the year 2017, a total of 14.5 million foreign tourists visited India. Of them, around 10 million came from America, European and Middle Eastern countries. The citizens of these countries are entitled to get on-arrival visa to Bangladesh. If we can wage a rigorous publicity campaign we can easily allure at least 1 million of the tourists who come to visit India. We may even receive more. Though India is a competitor in all our export business, but here they will be a complementary force for our tourism business. The geographical location as mentioned earlier has placed Bangladesh strategically in a very good position as far as tourism is concerned. Bangladesh shares a long border of 4096 km with India, the fifth longest land border in the world. This includes 262 km with Assam, 856 km with Tripura, 180 km with Mizoram, and 443 km with Meghalaya and 2217 km with West Bengal. If we understand the potentials of tourism we must give on arrival visa or E visa to the Indian Visitors. Our cosmetics and toiletries are very popular to the seven sisters. The Banga Bazar is also a popular place of marketing for them. If we can attract two million Indian tourists we can easily earn one billion US Dollar from them. The Banga Bazar has already become a brand name to the Indian tourist as well as cabin crews of different airlines operating in Bangladesh.
China, our other close neighbor, also has a population of 1200 million. On-arrival visa facility has been given to them but this has not been officially conveyed to the Chinese authority. Even if it has been done so, it has not been done in an effective way. As such the Chinese immigration officials do not allow Chinese visitors to travel to Bangladesh without visa. The same is applicable to all the on-arrival visa recipient countries. None of them officially knows about the advantage given to them. The political leadership has taken a very bold step but the field or execution level officials’ lack of commitment and understanding the significance of tourism has made it a hoax. This policy is taken to allure the foreign tourists but the visitors for whom it is meant do not know it. The more foreign tourists visit Bangladesh the more foreign currency the country will earn as well as the more employment opportunity for the unemployed educated youths. By correctly exploiting and exploring the Chinese market we can welcome around half a million Chinese tourists in a year resulting in minimum 400 million Dollars earnings. It may be relevant to mention here that in 2015 the number of outbound tourists from China rose to 120 million. Of these 90 % visited neighboring countries and countries within Asia. This proves how lucrative the Chinese market is for us. Thailand received 6 million Chinese tourists in 2015. Let us make a target for at least half a million Chinese tourists. This is a very conservative target. (To be continued on next issue)
[The writer is Chairman of Tourism & Hospitality Industry Skills Council. Former member of Bangladesh Tourism Board. Can be reached through email: [email protected]]
By A.K.M. Bari
