By Ali Hussan

The natural beauty of Bangladesh is abundant. It is surrounded by rivers, coasts, beaches, historical and sacred sites, hills, forests, waterfalls, and tea gardens. The Sundarban, the Old Mosque in Bagerhat, and the Buddhist Vihara Ruins at Paharpur are the three Bangladeshi World Heritage Sites, out of 1007. Numerous domestic and international tourists travel to the nation and its tourist destinations to take in the beauty of nature. Around six lakh (six hundred thousand) tourists visited Bangladesh in 2012 to take in the country’s beauty. In 2013, tourism contributed a total of 4.4% to the GDP, 3.8% to employment, and 1.5% to investors. Under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) oversees the nation of Bangladesh’s tourism industry.
According to Bangladesh’s tourist industry’s growth from 1995 to 2019 the number of tourists who are officially registered in Bangladesh each year is depicted in the graph below. A tourist is somebody who visits the nation for at least one night but does not stay for more than a year. Business excursions and other non-tourism travel reasons had previously been eliminated from the poll, to the extent that it asked about the purpose of the trip. Most nations do not classify crew members of ships or flights or other travelers passing through within the same day as tourists. Each visit counts again if the same person enters and exits more than once during the same calendar year.

Moreover, 25.00 million USD, or roughly 0.066 percent of the GDP, were generated by tourism in 1995. At the time, this amounted to around 156,000 tourists and 160 USD each individual. The nation’s reliance on tourism has notably expanded during the past 25 years. Sales accounted for $391.00 billion, or 0.11 percent of the GDP, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic’s breakout. As a result, each visitor to Bangladesh spent $1,211 on average throughout their trip. Tourism revenue fell precipitously in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. Only $217.90 billion ($2019) was left of the $391.00 billion ($2019). This represents a reduction in Bangladesh of 44%.

Beyond being neighbours, Bangladesh and the North East of India are much more than that. They are “natural marketplaces” for one another because they are close together geographically. At the moment, India and Bangladesh are collaborating to deepen and expand their relationship. They have advanced significantly in the area of security in recent years. They may now expand on their mutually beneficial relationship and get rid of the obstacles standing in the way of further connection and trade. Bangladesh can allow India to use its infrastructure for surface and maritime connectivity to convey people and materials to the Northeast while India can assist Bangladesh in improving its export and investment climate. Equally crucial are the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, the development and modernization of border infrastructure, and the promotion of connectivity on a bilateral basis as well as within the sub-region and beyond.
Despite all this yet Bangladesh need to improve in tourist sector as Bangladesh has failed to introduce itself as a tourist destination country Due to some limitations because they only offer slightly updated versions of the old stories about Bangladesh, the Rohingya crisis and other stories can’t shake off their outdated perception of the country. How will Bangladesh survive given its precarious situation is a recurring concern in the discourse on climate change. In Bangladesh, people’s lives still look empty and they continue to be passive victims. It is not surprising that the world likes to turn its gaze away from Bangladesh because, at its worst, Bangladesh illustrates the grim future of unbridled capitalism on a warming planet.
Bangladesh’s development success is less visible from the outside because it has been less about enabling the rich to live more cushioned lives than about change in the less visible economy of care. It is in the average Bangladeshi family, the place where Bangladeshis are made, that the true success lies: people now rear healthy families, eat well, learn and grow, and worry less about the next apocalyptic flood, fire or storm. It is a miraculous change in the most mundane parts of life, where women toil mostly invisibly and without reward. The capitalist gaze habitually turns away from women’s reproductive labor everywhere, so it is no surprise that women’s everyday role in Bangladesh’s development success is so easily ignored.
Although Bangladesh has earned much more from the tourism since 1995 to 2019 before the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic but yet it could not fulfill the requirements as Bangladesh required. The policy orientation focus of Bangladesh mostly remained on revenue generation and GDP growth but not on check and balance of foreign entries and activities in Bangladesh in the light of security prospect and the renovation for the future goals. Moreover the covid-19 pandemic created serious problems Bangladesh disturbing the tourism the most badly as Bangladesh’s image is still blur in the light of tourism. Bangladesh should also tend to solve these crises and issues like Rohingya crisis and other stories which can’t shake off their outdated perception of the country. Bangladesh should also analyze the external hegemonic natured entities such as India.