Sustainability of Tourism Industry: Bangladesh Perspective

Abstract

Bangladesh as a vacationland has many facets. 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. In Bangladesh, prospective areas are present, minimum infra-structural arrangement is developing, role of government is now positive, private and public organizations have come forward side by side to attract the local and foreign tourists, researchers, dignitaries and foreign delegates. Having all the minimum requirements, the tourism industry could not develop adequately. 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 human resource development aspect for tourism sector in Bangladesh. It is due to low literacy rate of general people, they cannot communicate with the domestic and foreign tourists significantly. So, the tourists felt discourage to visit repeatedly to the tourist spots. It is not possible to increase literacy rate dramatically to develop communicative skill of mass people. The researchers feel that a group of personnel could be developed on an emergency basis to face the immense need of the tourism industry in Bangladesh. Presently, specialized formal education like bachelor's degree, under graduate degree or postgraduate degrees are not available in universities of Bangladesh on tourism. No specialized training program is being found to develop skilled personnel in this regard. In some International Hotels, Parjatan Corporation and at private level tourist agencies very limited scope of on the job training has been developed. 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 GDP of Bangladesh.