Tourism and Crime: The Case of Bangladesh

Abstract

Tourism is an important sector and contributes significantly in the economy of Bangladesh. However, in comparison to others, the tourism industry has not developed and flourished considerably due to some obstacles. The increasing rate of crime is regarded as a potential threat for the industry. Besides some evidence from worldwide suggest that now a day, tourists and visitors are at risk of being victims of violent and property crimes. Some criminological theories such as rational choice theory, routine activity theory and opportunity theory indicate the significant relationship between crime and tourist areas. Mainly the present study attempts to find out the relation between crime and tourism in Bangladesh along with the patterns of crime in tourist areas and the associated risk factors behind it. The qualitative method has been used to conduct the study and data has been collected from secondary sources like various statistics, articles, books, newspapers and so on. The findings of the study revealed that most of the tourist places were affected by criminal activities such as dacoity, robbery, murder, hijacking, riot, women repression, kidnapping, police assault, burglary, theft, etc. Consequently, the frequency and number of tour by the tourist increased at a slower rate and our country are earning lower foreign currency from the tourism sector in recent years. Concerning the high volume of crime, factors like high inequality, mass unemployment, low income, and low level of education has strong influences on crime. Also, it is cheap and easy to buy different types of weapons and bombs in hilly areas due to lack of proper oversight of law enforcing agencies. In 2011, the number of international visitor tourist reached 443,000 generating revenue of BDT6.6 billion. However, in our study period, we found that the number of reported crime has been increasing day by day. Although the police reported crime increased sharply, in most cases residents have been victimized more than the foreigner. For this, the tourism industry is not yet badly affected by police-reported crime in most cases.