Community based ecotourism in income generation: a study on the sundarbans adjacent area of Bangladesh

Abstract

The rich natural and cultural attractions are valuable ingredients for community based ecotourism development in Bangladesh. Every year, a large number of tourists visit in the Sundarbans, which has a significant contribution in the household income to the people who are mostly involved in this sector. The result of the empirical model of Durbin-Watson test revealed the model significant at 1% and 5% level. The income counted here is considered as dependent variable and the age, education, experience, number of tourist served; poor infrastructure; poor communication and transportation; poor knowledge about CBET; lack of government policy etc. as independent variable, the eco cottage quality, natural beauty and security are the dummy variable. The result shows that, the age, number of tourist served and absence of leadership and entrepreneurship ability are significant at 1% and 5% level; experience and the eco cottage quality also found significant for income. However, community based ecotourism industry in Bangladesh is facing many problems, such as lack of transportation and communication system, poor investment, political unrest situation of the country , lack of government policy, poor marketing policy to attract the tourists, poor knowledge about CBET, lack of well-planned accommodation, food, entertainment and other services to satisfy diverse categories of tourists. The issue of safety and security of the tourists of both domestic and foreign origins is also very important for the development of ecotourism in Sundarbans area. Though a policy has been adopted in the recent time for ensuring sustainable development of this sector, the strategies adopted under the policy are not yet being seriously taken up for implementation. Besides, the country requires a strong physical planning strategy to develop its urban and rural areas, and national transportation and communication system to establish connectivity to the tourism spots. There should be a strong marketing policy, business planning as well for the promotion of tourism in the country.