The ongoing political turmoil has badly shattered the country’s tourism industry as tourists’ turnout is almost nil despite the fact that it is now its peak season, industry insiders said.
According to them, the number of domestic and foreign tourists in the tourist spots across the country has dropped by almost 100 per cent due to hazardous security situation.
The owners of hotels and motels are counting huge financial losses in the absence of tourists. Most of them could not even pay salaries to their staffs and also face hardships to maintain their day-to-day expenditures, they informed.
“We carry out 90 per cent of our yearly business in this season but this time the number of tourists is almost zero due to the otherwise risky political situation,” Ashfak Ahmed, managing partner of the Hotel Sky View at Cox’s Bazar area, the biggest tourist spot of the country, told the FE Thursday.
“Our hotels and motels are used to see early booking at this time of every year. But this year there are many hotels that do not have even one single tourist,” he added.
“Besides, many tourists who have registered with us in advance are now cancelling their booking for fear of a volatile political situation in the coming days,” he added.
Syful Islam, a private tour operator said they are used to handling of about one thousand tourists during winter season every year, but this year they could not confirm even one single trip till now.
“We used to handle many family visitors from November as examinations of schools and collages are usually complete within this time. But this year’s exams are yet to be completed. The New Year’s classes would start from January. This will finally deprive us of the seasonal business,” Islam added.
On the other hand, the number of foreign country-bound tourists, especially those willing to visit Nepal, India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, are also cancelling their programmes due to risky movement to airports.
Sources at the travel agencies said the well-off people, who usually enjoy their year-end and New Year’s vacation outside the country also dropped by over 70 per cent for the last two months.
Abul Kashem Hawlader, another tour operator who runs tour packages both at home and abroad, said many tourists who had enlisted their names for tour within the country during November to February period are now cancelling their booking.
Meanwhile, a high official at a private airline, said preferring anonymity many of their booked tickets for neighbouring countries have been cancelled and new ticketing for the places is also insignificant compared to the corresponding period of past years.
“We now see serious crisis of out-bound tourists, mainly to the neighbouring countries during this time,” he added.
Echoing the same experience, officials at other public and private airlines also said they also face cancellation of a significant number of booked tickets by tourists.
According to informed sources, the number of domestic tourists is over 1.0 million a year on an average with their contribution to the economy being over Tk 30 billion.