Why invest to attract foreign tourists? Perspective from Bangladesh

At present, the government is heavily promoting the natural wonders of Bangladesh to potential foreign tourists. A number of tourism-related magazine and websites have touted that Bangladesh is the next big destination to visit in the coming years. Of course, it sounds very rosy when we are marketing ourselves as the next big must-see destination. However, it also begs the question, why are we so keen on attracting foreign tourists? Can’t this money be better spent somewhere else?

To the proponents of tourism, foreign tourists spend a large amount of foreign currencies in Bangladesh, and this can help to generate economic activity in the services sector, create employment, and so on. This, compounded with the notion that Bangladesh is a beautiful destination to visit, encourages the tour operators and policy makers to attract foreign tourists into Bangladesh. After all, Bangladesh has the ‘world’s longest sea beach,’ Sundarbans, beautiful rural landscape, tea gardens, and the Hill Tracts that have the potential to attract tourists. All that Bangladesh has to do is to increase the number of tourists into the country to reap in the benefits. Thus, the government is spending to upgrade Cox’s Bazaar Airport to an international airport, creating an exclusive zone in Cox’s Bazaar, and spending heavily to brand and promote Bangladesh to foreign tourists..

My concern is, is this the best way to spend our resources? Is it a good idea to build infrastructure that will be used at most, 6 months out of the year? The Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (the tourism authority of Bangladesh) says that the best time to visit Bangladesh is between September and March. It makes sense, because the months of April through August is not a favorable time to visit Bangladesh due to the monsoon season and excessive heat. If we get heavy tourist traffic between September to March, we can assume that the international tourism-related infrastructure (airports, hotels, entertainment facilities, etc.) would be used to their potential during that period only. The rest of the year, they will be lying idle. Employment in the tourism industry is cyclical, and thus, similar to the tourism-related infrastructure, there will be high employment of labor during the busy season, and low employment during the lean season. As there will not be a steady use of these facilities, I do not think that promoting tourism should be the way to go in a resource-poor country like Bangladesh.

There is also the issue of transportation and safety. Bangladesh has some of the most unsafe highways in the world. Without fixing the transportation network of the country, it may not be the best idea to promote tourism.

I would think that instead of promoting international tourism, the government should promote domestic tourism. The middle-class of Bangladesh is growing in number, and is also getting richer. They have the income to take a quick vacation to different parts of the country. The government can encourage domestic tourism by improving the road and rail infrastructure of the country. The private sector can create tourism facilities that cater to the local demand. Domestic tourism is not as fickle, and there will be a steady flow of tourists to those facilities year-round, even in the hot summer months, thus ensuring that those facilities have satisfactory utilization and employment generation. If foreigners would like to visit such facilities, so be it, but the country should definitely not go all out to create infrastructure geared solely for foreign tourists.