Sustainable Tourism Development in Bangladesh: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Sustainable tourism conserves the environment and meets the necessity of present tourist and local communities without hampering the interest of future generation. Bangladesh has adequate natural resources and long history of cultural and heritage that can be useful for Bangladesh to be a one of the best tourism countries. The existing tourism policy and acts of Bangladesh are not supportive for sustainable tourism development. The growth of tourist arrival and foreign currency earning has no consistency. In recent year’s tourist’s departure are more than the arrivals. Bangladesh is trying to develop this sector and for that some initiatives have already been taken for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This study has examined existing policies and investigated the role of tourism stakeholders in socio-economic, cultural and environmental sustainability, potentiality of sustainable tourism development. It has also studied tourism as tools of poverty reduction. Further, the study attempted to identity the challenges and opportunities for tourism sector in Bangladesh and required policy guidelines in this regards. Tourism means the activities of visitors to visit a destination outside their usual environment of living for the purpose of holiday, leisure, recreation, sports, carnival, business, treatment, education, training, seminar, conference and any other purposes for less than one consecutive year. Tourism and sustainable tourism products are eco-tourism, cultural tourism, camping and caravan tourism, heritage tourism, youth tourism, ethnic tourism, nostalgic tourism, religious tourism, pro-poor tourism, sports tourism, agricultural tourism, birth tourism, medical tourism, music tourism, sex tourism wild life tourism and the related services. Basic requirements also are needed for sustainable tourism, regarding facilities, activities, attractions, transportation, commodities accommodations, food, beverages, restrooms and medical emergency assistance. The basic requirements for services are facilitation of travel access to information and service related to destination, financial transaction system, reservation and booking system, guide service and reliable local partners. The partners of sustainable tourism development are tourism industry, environmental support authorities and the local authorities. Sustainable tourism management of local level are related with political commitment, policy development, planning and regulations, safety and security, information service, event and attraction, organization and management, environmental management and promotion and marketing.

The main three principles of sustainable tourism development are ecological sustainability, which ensure that development is able to exists with the preservation of essential environment in a way that plants, animals and humans can live together. Second one is economic sustainability refers to that the enlargement is financially cost-effective in a way that money, materials, and other assets can assist fourth coming generation. Third one principles of sustainability is cultural and social control over human lives, which is able to co-exist with cultural values and religious believe and can keep residents coherence, which affected by tourism.

This study is qualitative in nature but descriptive in style. As such, it is an exploratory research. Because there is no comprehensive study conducted earlier in this area in Bangladesh. So, it has not been possible to draw any hypothesis. Both primary and secondary data has been used in this study. Three sets of separate semi-structured questionnaires have been used: one for tourist, one for executives and experts and another one for local communities and stakeholders. Study area has been selected from the most popular tourist destinations of Bangladesh. For Major findings and analysis of primary and secondary data, nonparametric

tests have been conducted to arrive at meaningful conclusion of data analysis of the study. The study has tried to finding out probable ways to make it more sustainable for the future generation. Sustainable tourism is an effective tool for poverty reduction of underdeveloped countries. Now a days some of the poorest countries in the world have enjoying comparative advantages than most developed countries in tourism sector. Tourism is a labor intensive business, So the poorest countries have greater advantages to use their labor resource is this sector to fight against poverty. According to UNWTO, 2016, the growth of international tourists of the world is 3.9%, for emerging economics countries is 4.1% and for advanced economic countries is 5%. Bangladesh is a lower middle income generating country with 170 million populations and a big number of them are below property level. This poverty can be reduced through the strategic development of sustainable tourism. The main challenges to sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh include poor existing tourism policy, amount of garbage, haphazard condition of some tourism destination, shortage of proper infrastructure, lack of standard accommodations, under developed transportation system, lack of effective marketing policy, political unrest, religion fundamentalism, investment, lack of required FDI, safety and security problem, traffic jam, inexperienced labor and executives, lack of proper knowledge, lack of experienced tour operators and tour guides, limited air destinations and finally negative impact of the country. Major opportunities are improvements of sustainable tourism; large number of tourist spots like world largest unbroken sea beach, three UNESCO declared world heritage sites; river; hills; forests; life style; clothing; tribal culture and life style; and many archeological sites.

Potential of sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh is positive in respect to tourism products, services and facilities. Proper development can contribute to GDP, employment and foreign exchange earnings from the tourism sector of Bangladesh.

Roles and responsibility of government, NGOs, tourism related organizations and associations are essential for sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh. These parties should closely coordinate their efforts in this regard.

Policy guidelines for sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh can be developed in cooperation of public and private sector including NGOs, tourism related organization and association, tourist and other stakeholders. Ecological sustainability can be ensured by nature conservation, environmental education, land use policy, preservation of coastal areas and beaches, protecting forest and wild life. Ecological sustainability also depends on proper carrying capacities of the tourist areas. To managing economic sustainability government should create employment opportunities and income source for the local communities of the tourist areas by providing economic incentives, encouraging entrepreneurship and increasing various economic activities in the destination. Social and cultural sustainability can be managed through conservation of the cultural heritage of the area, cross-cultural exchange, community involvement and reinforcing positive impacts and mitigating negative impacts. Planned infrastructure, pollution free environment, wildlife protection, livelihood environment for poor and disadvantaged people are also essential. Improvement of existing tourism policy at par with sustainable requirements can ensure sustainable tourism development of Bangladesh.