Much is made about the exclusive genre of highly-customised tourist zones in affluent countries including some Arab Kingdoms at the top end. But when it comes to assessing the state and prospects of sustainable tourism in a country, veterans of the industry still stick to a conventional measure of assessment: if a country is not good enough for domestic tourism, implying inadequacies in infrastructure, it is to that extent, handicapped in drawing overseas travellers.
The domestic tourism is, however, rising -thanks to package offers of tourist operators coinciding with a growing middle class appetite for recreation induced by a bit of surplus money in hand. Although the tourist infrastructure has somewhat expanded ,it generally falls short of expectations. So, the upbeat in domestic tourism must not be taken as an enthusiastic compliment for any vastly improved tourist infrastructure.
In this context , region-wide tourism through organised cooperation among the countries and stakeholders of South Asia holds an answer to the problem. Such an agenda is pursued energetically because the global tourists are totalling 102 billion. South East Asian region accounts for 14 per cent. Thus, the potential of both South and South East Asia is huge .
When such is the merit of region-wide tourism, we find it a bit ironical that a six-nation organization named "We Asia " was launched in Dhaka on Friday on 'the sidelines' of the Biman Bangladesh Travel and Tourism Fair, 2017. It derved to be a mainstream affair. Bangladesh, India,Bhutan , Nepal , Sri Lanka and Myanmar jointly formed the organisation aimed at 'working together for promoting tourism.' While agreeing with the Bangladesh's civil aviation and tourism minister Rashed Khan Menon's emphasis on a single platform for promotion of tourism in the region, Ooperationally we need to determine our sale points and acquire positive brand name. Of course, 'nature, culture and adventure' of the countries are the same' and therefore having a common platform may be to the mutual advantage of the countries concerned. Yet we should be mindful of the fact that we are competing with each other for our share of the global pie.
In such an overall perspective, there's a need for a two-pronged approach: one fundamentally regional and the other global. Intra- and inter-regionally, there ought to be seamless tourism, meaning travellers should be able to move from one country to another unhindered by visa restrictions or other complications .In fact a valid visa from one country should enable a possessor to visit all other countries in the region.
It is disparaging for Bangladesh that while she allows citizens of 65 countries on-arrival visas, the gesture is not reciprocated by a very large number of countries. Such unrequited gesture smacks of discrimination. Closer home, India and Bangladesh have yet to introduce on-arrival visa. This is in spite of the fact that 'Bangladeshi tourists to India now outnumbered the long-time topper USA to become the largest tourists. This is according to none other than Suddhabrata Deb, president of the Inbound Tour Operators association of India.
The country has nothing like the Atlanta-Canada destination partnership or Mekong Tourism Alliance in South East Asia. It is time, it had such collaborative arrangements with focus on its heritage and eco-tourism and, above all, its status as the 4th among the fastest growing nations of the world.
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