Bangladesh Tourism Board

1.    Bangladesh Tourism Board, a member of the UNWTO and PATA, is the National Tourism organization of Bangladesh. . In 2010 Hon'ble Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina established it through the enactment of the Tourism Board Act, 2010.

2.    As an important agency of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism the main function of it is to develop and promote the tourism industry of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Tourism Board is currently working hard to achieve the goal.

The Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism is the ex-officio Chairman and CEO is the member secretary of the Governing Body to manage the agency.

3.    The Board mainly works on 6 issues such as (1) Formulation of Plan and Policies (2) promoting and marketing the Tourism of Bangladesh in both home and abroad. (3) Human resource Development of Human Resource in tourism sector. (4) Development of basic facilities for Tourist in tourist (5) Activities related to public awareness to engage them with this sector and establish working relationship with international organizations. (6) Establishing communication and coordination between domestic and foreign, public and private tourism organizations.

4.    Activities of Bangladesh Tourism Board.

Firstly, I would like to inform about the plans and policies of this Board.

Tourism Master Plan comes first if we want to say about plans and policies of the Board. This Master Plan is going to be a complete guideline to achieve the cherished goal of the Board. All the Stakeholders of Tourism sector is working in a line to formulate this Master Plan and the successful implementation of this plan would work as a state-of-the art in this sector. Keeping this spirit in mind, we initiated the task of formulating the Master Plan in 2020.

An international consulting firm was hired for this. As per approved work Plan, the task is supposed to be completed on June 30, 2021,. In this endeavor of formulating the Master Plan, COVID-19 pandemic came as a big blow creating a stagnant hindrance. But anyhow, we are committed to complete the task for a better tourism industry in Bangladesh.

Tourism Recovery Plan: With a view to overcoming the loss of tourism caused by COVID-19 pandemic and taking the tourism sector forward, a recovery plan has been formulated

The ministry has already approved it and has asked to make necessary guideline on the same. Accordingly, 22 polices or guidelines have been prepared for the implementation of this recovery plan. The policies or guidelines will cover  (1) Adventure Tourism (2) Agro-Tourism, (3) Rural Tourism, (4) Cultural Tourism, (5) Responsible Tourism (6) Ocean Cruise Tourism (7) River Tourism (8) Haor Tourism (9) Halal Tourism (10) Religious Tourism (11) Sports Tourism (12) Sustainable Tourism (13) Wildlife Tourism (14) Gastronomy Tourism (15) MICE Tourism (16) Blue Economy and Tourism (17) Volunteerism in Tourism (18) Bangabandhu Tourism Award (19) Internship program for students (20) Beach carnival (21) National and International Tourism fair and (22) Training guideline and module on CBT

5. Secondly, Current activities for promoting and marketing of Tourism products.

Bangladesh Tourism Board is managing several promotional and distribution works to showcase the country's tourism potentials in the global arena.

Among others, BTB has created a web portal: www.beautifulbangladesh.gov.bd, only for promoting the country's tourism to visitors worldwide. The website contains photos and videos of all the tourism attractions found in 64 districts of Bangladesh.

BTB is also creating a database on tourism including information on all the subsectors of tourism as well - airlines, hotels, motels, transport, guide, tour operator, and amusement park and so on. This will help tourists to enjoy a one-stop solution for their visit to the country.

It can be mentioned here that Bangladesh Tourism Board is also developing a mobile app called Beautiful Bangladesh for both IOS and Android. This will not only allow tourists to receive information on tourism destinations and hospitality but also to book various services related to their visit.

6. Some basic facilities on which BTB has given efforts.

Since its inception, BTB has been working on the development of basic facilities for tourists to attract more tourists in our tourist attractions. Many tourist sites across the country lack basic facilities and services like washrooms, seating arrangements, coffee shops, and souvenir shops and so on. For these, with the help of department of architecture, BTB has come up with a design to implement the said facilities and services at tourist sites. The implementation phase will begin next year. We have established basic facilities for tourists in 91 tourist sites across the country with the help of respective district administrations with the cost of BDT 47 crore 88 lac.

7. To engage people in tourism and to establish working relationship with international organization we have taken some public awareness activities.

We have arranged some workshops in 49 districts in this year, each workshop has been attended by government officials, public representatives, journalists, academics, tourism stakeholders and many more. In these workshops we have tried to encourage government officials of each district to include tourism so that they contribute in making their development plans. BTB has also formed a plan to develop rural tourism in 60 sub-districts of Bangladesh. The aim of this program is to make villages better equipped for tourism and make tourism rural centric. BTB is involving other ministries and local administration in rural tourism development as well.

8., Now I would like to present the activities related to the Human Resource Development of Tourism sector.

Countrywide training is another key initiative of Bangladesh Tourism Board. Bangladesh Tourism Board is regularly providing training to tour operator, tour guide and street food vendors. With the help of UN Volunteers, one of the UN agencies, Bangladesh Tourism Board is providing training by forming volunteer group in different tourists’ area. We have held some workshops for tourist police and archeology department officials to better facilitate tourists, some for media representatives to better equip them in promoting tourism destinations in their news coverage, some for communities to be more tourist friendly, and some for commercial councilors, passport officers, and labor councilors who go abroad to allow them to further promote Bangladesh globally. BTB is in efforts to bring transport service providers, accommodation providers, amusement park representatives and restaurateurs in every district under our trainings as well to build a proper tourism infrastructure. In the last three years, BTB have provided trainings to 3,235 people of different sectors of the country to make tourism more inclusive. Our goal is to inculcate a tourism friendly attitude among tourism service providers through training.

9. RURAL TOURISM

10. Stressing the need for Community based tourism, BTB has made efforts to ensure intensive development utilizing a limited tourism resource. Tourists have huge attraction towards the life style of local people, their language, tradition and culture which will fetch economic benefit. For community-based tourism, BTB has already trained 110 people in different communities across the country.

11. E. VISA

Next, We are making liaison   and coordination program among domestic and foreign, public and private tourism organization. BTB is also working towards launching e-visas for our neighboring countries. It is a demand of time and it will help bring more visitors to our country. BTB is working with the Security Service Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs of Bangladesh to facilitate visitors of neighboring countries with e-visas. We are also in constant communication with ambassadors of the countries in South East Asia to help maintain the required connection between the tourism boards, tour operators, and stakeholders of our country to our neighboring counterparts.

INSTITUTION

We have a new dream -and that is to establish a training institute of International Standard for the well management of tourism and hospitality. Hon'ble Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has gracefully consented on the policy approval for establishing an international standard training institute for tourism and hospitality management. Until the campus is ready, BTB will carry on the training activities at Hotel InterContinental. With this institute BTB aims to meet the needs of skilled and professional tourism and hospitality workers across the country.

The Bangladesh Tourism Board (বাংলাদেশ পর্যটন বোর্ড) is the national tourism organisation of Bangladesh, responsible for promoting tourism and providing necessary training and is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mr. Muhammad Faruk Khan MP Honorable Minister, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism. Mr. Md. Mokammel Hossain, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism is the present Chairman of the Governing body of Bangladesh Tourism Board, and Mr. Abu Tahir Muhammad Zaber, Additional Secretary is the present CEO of the board and the Member Secretary of the Governing body of Bangladesh Tourism Board.

History
The board is a statutory body established in 2010. It is located on west Agargaon, Sher e Bangla Administrative area. It is responsible for the promotion of tourism in Bangladesh. It is under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism of Bangladesh.