The foreign currency earnings from tourism and related services has largely been outstripped by money spent by Bangladeshi travellers abroad as revealed by a recent media report. Impressive growth in foreign tourist visits even could not hold back the real drain on foreign exchange earnings, official statistics suggest. The number of outbound Bangladeshi travellers has doubled in seven years and they spend more generously abroad than foreign tourists coming to our country. Foreign tourist arrival is growing, but at a slower pace than Bangladeshis going abroad. A study shows, about 1.13 lakh Bangladeshi travellers went abroad in 2000 and their number more than doubled to 2.33 lakh in 2007.
The outbound tourists spent Tk 1,072 crore in foreign exchange abroad in 2007 for tourism purposes. On the other hand, the country's earnings from tourism and related services was about Tk 526 crore in foreign currency. It is rather difficult to have accurate and authentic information on tourism once the national tourism authority comes into being. In fact, the overall growth in the tourism sector was impressive in 2007 despite political uncertainty and major natural disasters like floods and cyclone.
Domestic tourism also grew significantly with an increasing number of people travelling to different natural and archaeological sites, private tour operators say. Cox's Bazar, Teknaf, St. Martin's Island, Kuakata beach, the mangrove forest Sundarbans, archaeological sites and places and places of pilgrimage attracted most of travellers from both home and abroad. According to the global tourism body's index, Bangladesh ranks 120 out of 124 member countries. Efforts must
be there at all levels - private and public - to boost tourism as the World Tourism Organisation predicts that global tourism industry will benefit from more than one billion tourists by 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020. This will give tourism the status of the number one industry globally.
Reported on The New Nation 2008-05-12
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