Development of Tourism Industry in Bangladesh

Mohammad Shamsuddoha
Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Md. A. Hossain
Assistant Professor, Department of Finance, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Shams E. S. Shahriar
Managing Director, FNF Internet Service Provider, Chittagong, Bangladesh
T. Chakraborty
MBA, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Abstract:
Tourism is world’s largest justifiable service industry that is generating huge revenue for
tourist country. Bangladesh has lots of tourism spots but most of them unexplored by the
relevant authority. Having all the minimum requirements, the tourism industry could not
develop adequately in Bangladesh. The cracks of problem could not identify accurately
because of paucity of sufficient number of research and investigations in our country.
Out of different problems, the researchers have concentrated their focus to development
aspect for tourism sector in Bangladesh. This study will facilitate the decision makers to
assess the intensity of the problem and to plan accurate measures to train and develop a
good number of manpower for facing the current need readily. This could benefit the
tourism industry in multiple ways. This could change the economic picture of tourism
sector and contribute a big share in the economy of Bangladesh.
Keywords: Tourism, Bangladesh, Development

Introduction
Bangladesh is a poor country having lots of potentiality in various sectors. Tourism is one of his
potential sectors but it is still unexplored by the decision maker or relevant agency. Her tourist
attractions include archeological sites, historic mosques and monuments, resorts, beaches, picnic
spots, forest and wildlife. Bangladesh is a riverine country having attractive panoramic beauty.
There are hills, vales, deep and mangrove forests, rivers and the longest beach in the world. In
this country, the scope of nature based tourism, research based tourism, culture based tourism,
and eco-tourism is quite evident (Shamsuddoha M, 2004).Many developing countries have
prepared plans particularly at the central level to guide tourism development, as they have
recognized the tourism sector as an important source of foreign currency earning and
employment (Cevat Tosun and Dallen J. Timothy, 2001). Bangladesh needs to come out to be
several defects in the planning approaches to tourism development. It is quite evident that there
is the need for political stability, establishing supportive institutions and decentralization to
develop and implement an appropriate contemporary tourism planning approach by taking into
account destination specific conditions, and collaboration and cooperation of private,
government, and international agency. The marketing experts opine that tourism marketing is the
systemic and coordinated efforts to optimize the satisfaction of tourism. The tourism marketing
is also supposed to be a device to make a possible reorientation in the business policy and
overhaul in the management concept. Tourism planning has been defined as a process based on
research and evaluation, which seeks to optimize the potential contribution of tourism to human
welfare and environmental quality (Tosun and Jenkins, 1998). Goodall and Bergsma (1990)
consider total cost a fifth component, in addition to attractions, facilities/services, accessibility,
and image. Destination choice, image, and satisfaction have all been the subject of considerable
tourism research (McLellan and Fousher, 1983; Pyo et al., 1989; Selby and Morgan, 1996;
Sirakaya et al., 1996). Thus, tourism planning should relate tourism development to the more
equitable distribution of wealth that is one of the main aims of national development planning. In
this respect, tourism planning is a component of national development planning and strategy.
Moreover, it includes a decision- making process between the tourism industry and other sectors
of the economy, between various sub- national areas and between types of tourism. It requires the
integration of the tourism industry into other sectors such as agriculture, industry, transportation
and social services (Timothy, 1999). In view of the aforesaid, facts it is right to mention that
tourism is an integrated effort to satisfy tourists by making available to them the best possible
services. It is a device to transform the potential tourists into actual tourists. There has been little
research to measure the performance levels of tourist industry and small hospitality businesses
either as individual organizations or as components of tourist destinations. Here the researchers
tried to unearth the real problem behind the development of tourism industry in Bangladesh.

Rationale of the study

In Bangladesh, government is sufferings from earning source to generate more revenue for the
smooth mobility of the country. Tourism is one of the sectors; he can manage more earnings
from this sector if this sector would be unorganized to organize. Bangladesh is trying to develop
its tourism industry to compete in local and global market. Bangladesh needs to develop its
tourism industry for local tourists as well as foreign tourist. In Bangladesh, tourism has lot of
potentiality to earn more revenue than presently what they are earning. If Governmental agency,
private organizations and multinational agency come forward and take the responsibility for
developing tourism industry, it will earn much more returns and generate lots of employment as
well. There has no plethora research work on tourism industry in Bangladesh perspectives. This
research will add some va lue and fill up the gap that motivated the authors to undertake such a
study

Objectives of the study

In the light of development of tourism industry in Bangladesh particularly, the main objectives of
the study are discuss the components for attraction of a tourist spot in Bangladesh. The
researcher also tried to give some proforma based process for investors and the beneficiaries
from the developed tourism industry in Bangladesh. In developed country, they are doing
extensive research on tourism and developing theoretical aspect and technical aspect for further
development of tourism industry. Here the researcher tried to expose some ingredients for sake
of the development of tourism industry in Bangladesh based on extensive literature review.

Scope and Methodologies of the study

The study covered various Government and non-governmental organization who are acting vital
role in developing tourism industry in Bangladesh. The sample comprised more than ten
Governmental and non-governmental institutes those who are working with the development of
tourism in Bangladesh. Necessary information and data has been collected from the officials of
those organizations through the direct interview method by using structured questionnaire. In
addition, review all the tourism related websites for updated information. In total 50 officials
have been interviewed during the study period for official information and 120 domestic tourists
have been interviewed for unearthing the most demandable facilities regarding tourism industry.
In the other hand, the researcher also reviews several foreign and local research works as well in
this field.
Limitations of the study
The study covered very limited number of sample organizations in respect of its real scope all
over the country. There is no plethora of research work in Bangladesh context in this field.
Sometimes respondent were not interested to express to their honest opinion. To overcome these
limitations, an exhaustive study of existing literature in this field, foreign journal, relevant
publication by Government and other private agencies were studied. This is fully self- financed
research work that is why the researcher could not able to cover wider area.

Analysis of Findings
A. Components for attraction of a tourist spot
This is very evident that attraction, infrastructures, facilities, hospitality, cost are the five factors
which can develop a tourist industry. The following lists show components of tourist destination
attractiveness, compiled through five factors , which were literature reviews regarding tourist
destination choice, image and tourist satisfaction.

Attractions Facilities and services

In a straight line or circuitously, a tourism business plays a vigorous role in providing almost all
the tangible and intangible components of attractiveness identified in the lists shown above.
Hence, these sorts of changes can contribute considerably to visitor pleasure/displeasure and to
tourist perceptions and images of destinations. Every agency takes care of these five factors due
to customer satisfaction. The researchers have conducted a study over domestic tourist regarding
finding the answer of what are the top five facilities are most demandable by the sample
respondents.

Table 2 shows that there is no specific demand regarding tourism industry, it is a combined
demand of the customer view points which are related with Communication facilities,
Accommodation facilities, Reasonable cost charges, Security facilities, and Sight seeing
facilities. The top most demand by the domestic tourist is the security. All the respondents feel
that security should be ensured by the tourism authority.

The total exceeds 100+ because respondents are choosing more than one answers from the
structured questionnaire. The study reveal that the authority should ensures sight seeing facilities
and communication facilities should be develop and every tourist is ready to pay even more if
the facilities.

B. Benchmarking in the Tourism industry

Benchmarking is the process of determining who is the very best, who sets the standard, and
what that standard is. In baseball, you could argue that seven consecutive World Series
Championships made the New York Yankees the benchmark (www.Business.com). If
Bangladesh can set the benchmarking of tourism industry, then they can able to evaluate the
performance of the industry. Given the volatility in the small hospitality sector, it may be that
those small businesses, which could most, benefit from benchmarking are the very ones that lack
the resources and inclination to carry it out (Micklewright, 1993). In any case, the benchmarking
of small organizations against one another is unlikely to make a real impact on destination image
and tourist satisfaction. The following list identifies some of the critical performance areas in
which classification and grading schemes lay down standards to be achieved in tourism industry
in Bangladesh.

It is also significant that the limited examples of benchmarking carried out among small tourism
businesses have almost all been carried out by external third parties (Coker, 1996; Department of
National Heritage, 1996; Johns et al. , 1996; Johns et al. , 1997). The above performance is key
factors to determine the benchmarking of the tourism industry.
Figure 1 shows that there is a flow of factors for decision makers , process for investors,
performance for tourist industry and the ultimate result. There should have some factors, which
have internal, and external factors and procedures is always development oriented. In this
process stage, the authority or relevant authority should measure the graph of development.
Organizations need to achieve an overall level of performance in order to be get competitive
advantage. All these activities and process can be accepted as benchmarks indicating how
businesses perform against various standards. In principle, they make it possible to improve both
systems and service outputs on an ongoing basis. In order to benefit from external benchmarking,
small tourism businesses must be motivated to reflect and examine. Finally, all the activities
carry to the results, which maintain the development of tourist industry and sustainable
development on tourism industry in Bangladesh.

C. Performance of Tourism Industry

Concluding Remarks
It is possible to sketch some wide -ranging conclusions that take the figure of policy
recommendations and a set of related lessons for why modern planning approaches to tourism
development have not been implemented and why these defects in planning approaches to
tourism development have emerged in Bangladesh. First, current defects in planning approaches
to tourism development are an extension of prevailing shortcomings of public administration
systems, political cultures, over-politicized states, and lack of developmental approaches to
national development. That is to say, the roots of an ill-planned approach to tourism development
are a reflection of the existing sophisticated socio-political and economic system that shaped
planning approaches to tourism development. As Tosun and Jenkins (1998, p. 111) argued: The
choice of approach to planning assignments will be conditioned by many factors.

Perhaps the predominant factors will be related to the stage of political and economic
development in the particular country. Tourism planning team or the national planning
organization cannot develop and implement a better planning approach to tourism development
themselves unless some desirable changes in this macro system take place. This may mirror the
popular assertion that tourism does not bring development, rather development brings tourism.
Second, political instability appears to be one of the main obstacles to implementation of
continuous planning activity and consistency of tourism policy. There are too many bureaucratic
old approach to planning has been replaced with a new approach to planning, which is called the
``contemporary approach’’ that involves flexible, continuous, comprehensive, integrative,
participatory and system planning models. These components of the contemporary approach are
not necessarily exclusive; rather they overlap each other. Therefore, Bangladesh should develop
an appropriate method of planning by using the right promotional mix and proportion of
components of the contemporary approach, taking into account their own circumstances. Finally,
the efficiency and effectiveness of contemporary approaches to tourism planning largely depend
on the pattern of power distribution in developing countries. Centralized public administration
systems make the implementation of conte mporary approaches to tourism planning difficult.
There are some other recommendations is that pricing should be reasonable, extensive
promotional activities in domestic and foreign markets, starting the tourism educations, buildup
tourism professionals through training and development works, increase private investment and
should welcome to the foreign investors. If all the recommendations and process follow by
tourism administrator or agency then only Bangladesh can able to maintain the growth of
development of tourism industry and its sustainable development.

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