Business Report
Local hotel and tourism sector is the worst affected business sector from the ongoing political troubles hitting hard the nation. Booking to hotels and motels have almost dropped to zero at tourists resorts like Cox’s Bazar, Kuakata, Sundarbans, Sylhet and such other places and people are taking refuns in many cases.
People are cancelling bookings while new bookings have dropped to nil. It is happening because people are not willing to take risks at a time when inter-districts movement of transports remained grounded and political violence on roads and highways is ending in bloodsheds.
President of Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB) Toufique Ahmed Chowdhury said the tourism sector is badly affected by the political turmoil. People are not moving for risks and foreign tourists are also cancelling trips as some countries have also issued tour alerts in the wake of worsening situation in Bangladesh.
Leading inbound tour operator- Bengal Tours officials said they had 100 visitors from Europe and Japan due between October and the first week of November, but all of them have abandoned their plan.
Similarly, Galaxy Holidays, another inbound tour operator had bookings for about 60 tourists from France, Germany, China, Taiwan and Japan in November, but all of them have dropped the trips, company general manager Syed G Qadir is quoted to have said.
On the other hand, a group of 15 tourists recently arrived in the country on a 23-day trip defying risks and they were to remain struck with 17 days of countrywide and district-level shutdowns.
Another operator said they fear the 100 tourists who have booking with them from the end of November may cancel their trip. The recent spate of cancellations has caused a loss of around $50,000 revenue for the company, its officials said.
A large number of foreign and domestic tourists usually go to the Sundarbans at this time of the year for the ‘Ras Mela festival’, one of the biggest traditional festivals for the Hindus, said an official of Green Holidays Tours.
“Frustratingly, we had to cancel the tours this year because of the shutdowns,” he said, adding that his company has abandoned its tours on the Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar route as well.
But it is the long-term impact of the political turmoil that worries the operators all the most.
“Foreign tourists generally make their travel plans 6-12 months in advance. I am pretty sure the ongoing turbulence will put off a good number of prospective tourists and move elsewhere, one operator saaid.
For Cox’s Bazar’s hospitality sector, November to February is the peak season for tourist arrivals at the seaside town. For instance, Hotel Cox Today, which usually runs nearly 70 per cent occupancy at this time of the year, has only 10-15 per cent booking of its 276 rooms in use, said one of the directors.
“We are almost ruined,” said Omar Sultan, president of Cox’s Bazar Hotel-Motel and Guest House Owners Association, adding around 95 per cent of the bookings with different hotels, motels and guest houses in the resort town have been cancelled.
As a result, some 5,000 staff members have been laid-off, he added.
Airlines have also started to lose business on Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar route either by Tourists are getting their tickets cancelled and taking refunds. “We usually cut down our flights during shutdowns, but nowadays we are failing to run even the handful of flights due to the thin presence of passengers,” Novoair managing director Mofizur Rahman told the media recently.
The airline has to cancel few flights on the Jessore and Cox’s Bazar route over the last couple of days.
The travel and tourism sector raked in Tk 19,300 crore, or 2.1 percent of the GDP, in 2012, and was poised to improve the figure by 7.7 percent in 2013, a study by World Travel and Tourism Council found.
In 2012, the sector also registered Tk 3,730 crore investments, which is 1.6 per cent of total investments for the year, but this year’s events are putting wrong signals at home and abroad.
Source: Weekly Holiday
