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It’s time to escape the heat and head for the hills!

This April, join Bangladesh travel guru Mikey Leung for an unforgettable
Chittagong Hill Tracts Trek, co-organised with Bangladesh Eco-tours,
the hill tracts’ leading trek operator. The trek departs on April 14 from Chittagong and ends on April 18th, also in Chittagong.

Summary
An interesting tour focusing on the most interesting and least visited part of the country, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Here you will experience the culture and lifestyle of the hidden indigenous people living there.

ACTIVITIES & HIGHLIGHTS
You’ll stay at quaint eco-cottages, enjoy a river cruise, the CHT’s New Year festival (Sangrai for Marma people), treks, handicraft shopping (or perhaps learning), bird watching, sightseeing & photography and most of all — absorbing the pristine atmosphere. Highlights include indigenous cultures, village-based education projects, tribal crafts, music, Buddhist Khyang and more.

DAY 01: Tue 14 Apr Arrive Chittagong
We greet you at Chittagong airport or train station. After a brief sightseeing tour of port city Chittagong we drive to south along the Arakan Highway and into the hills to a small tribal market town of Bandarban. After hotel check-in, you’ll enjoy the Sangrai, the new year festival of Marma tribe, then explore Buddhist temples and Stupas, wander through and photograph the indigenous bazaar or take a walk in the hills. Overnight at the Hillside Eco-lodge with great views of the Sangu river. Bandarban. (L/D)

DAY 02: Wed 15 Apr Bandarban to Ruma
This morning you’ll visit the local weekly market and able to see different tribal peoples arriving to trade for essentials, then drive to Ruma on a smaller hilly road. After a 2 hour drive, you’ll arrive at Ruma Ghat to board a small traditional wooden boat that will take us down the Sangu river to Ruma Bazar. At this time of year there will be little water in the river. This is a very small interesting and ‘relatively’ important riverside market inhabited by Bawm tribal people. In Ruma we’ll stay at the small local guesthouse (B/L/D)

DAY 03: Thu 16 Apr Ruma to Boga Lake, trekking
After breakfast, you’ll take a 5-6 hour trek up a creek valley. You’ll halt for bananas and tea at half-way point. On reaching the last section, the valley will narrow and you’ll have a short climb up the foothill and have some very nice views. The rest of the afternoon is free to rest and mingle in this small and friendly Bawm village. Overnight at a community-built guesthouse. (B/L/D)

DAY 04: Fri 17 Apr Boga Lake & Kewkradang
Today you spend all day at Boga lake village observing and perhaps helping out a bit in the daily life of these hill people. Optionally, you can take a shorter trek up to Darjeeling Para and see the peak of Keokeradang (highest point in Bangladesh). Or you can visit a nearby Marma Buddhist village below the lake. Overnight at a community-built guesthouse. (B/L/D)

DAY 05: Sat 18 Apr Boga Lake to Bandarban via Ruma
You take leave village hosts this morning and gradually trek down the small river valley to Ruma Bazaar. You then take a small wooden country boat to Bandarban and drive back to Chittagong. It was home to the largest population of British in Bengal next to Kolkata (Calcutta) during the colonial times.

We will also include an optional visit to the ship breaking yards where large ships are scrapped by hundreds of men by hand (lots of them), the recycling of gigantic ships by hand, a truly awesome sight! and also visit some recycling shop.

We drop you at airport to fly back to Dhaka or transfer to train station for the overnight journey. (B/L).

Note:
Please note that this tour plan is just a guide to what is planned. We remain open to your input and plans be adjusted to make your tour more interesting, relevant and exciting. It may also be modified due to unforeseen circumstances.

Deposit:
Trip deposit (US$100) will be required in order to book reservation for this trip. The maximum number of passengers is four.

Malaria Notes:
We will be trekking through malaria prone areas on this trip. While we don’t expect any problems, it is best to be prepared. Mosquito nets will be provided at all accommodation. It is highly recommended that you bring long-sleeved tops and bottoms for the evenings and wear mosquito repellent at all times. Guests must also begin the malaria prophylaxis before departure. Malaria testing facilities are widely available in the CHT.

While Bangladesh Ecotours and Joybangla.info are happy to offer advice and suggestions on anti-malarial measures, we cannot take any responsibility for the misconduct of guests who do not follow our advice. Passengers will be required to sign a waiver form to this effect before departure or they will not be allowed to participate on this trip.

Cost:
The trip cost is $425 USD, or 29,000BDT.

The trip cost includes:
-All meals as listed in the itinerary
-Private hire transport from Chittagong to Chittagong
-Accommodation at local guesthouses and villages
-Boat Ride on the Sangu River (Ruma to Bandarban)
-Obtaining government permits
-Local Tour Guide
-Foreign Professional Tour Leader

Trip cost does not include:
-Transport to/from Chittagong
-Gratuities
-Souvenirs
-Antimalarial medicines (available locally in CHT)

~story by Mikey Leung~

Dhaka is a safe place, when you know how to play by its rules.

Nonetheless, there have been a incidences of muggings and robberies, and bag snatching among the expatriate community, particularly in the Gulshan and Mohammadpur areas.

I hate to sound patronizing, but single females, moving around at night (usually but not always after 10pm), seem to be the biggest target. I have heard of far too many incidences now where a single expatriate female was riding a rickshaw, only to fall victim to drive-by bag snatchings. Some of these women have been pulled off the rickshaw entirely and dragged for several meters. I have noticed that several of these occurrences have occurred at night, on quiet or busy roads, but there is one common thread between them all: a single female is often the target victim.

After a few months of keeping tabs of the incidents, I would like to make a few security recommendations here. Once again, I do believe Dhaka is a safe place when you know how to play by its rules. Of course, these suggestions apply to both women and men, but women are more often the target victims, according to what I’ve heard and kept track of.

Here are my suggestions:

• Solo females should NOT travel around at night, by rickshaw, after 9-10pm. If they must travel, it is best to go in groups.
• Be vigilant while travelling/walking and keep aware of your surroundings. An alert-looking person, whose head is up and is watching the environment around them, presents less of a target than someone who is lost in their own world.
• Bags should be kept off the shoulder, so that if a bag snatching does occur, there is no risk of being dragged, which has actually caused the more serious injury in these incidences.
• A common myth is that poverty spawns these crimes, but in reality that bag snatching crimes are often committed by people with vehicles, which people in poverty cannot afford. It is theorized that it is actually young men, some of whom may be addicted to drugs, commit these crimes and have the means (i.e. a vehicle) to do so.
• If travelling out of the city at night, it is best not to accept food or drinks from strangers at train stations or bus stands, unless you see the drink being made or the food being prepared. In a recent theft, we heard of a drugging that knocked a single female unconscious. It would be a mistake to proclaim that all hospitality offered by strangers is malicious, especially in Bangladesh. But, by being aware of where a drink or food comes from, you can protect yourself.

The Canadian Travel Report for Bangladesh provides some decent advice on the same issue:

Pickpocketing, purse snatching, and mugging are common, especially in areas frequented by tourists and when travelling by rickshaw or baby taxi (motorized pedicabs). Unaccompanied women face the highest risk. Physical and verbal harassment of women can be a problem.

Do not walk alone after dark. Victims of crime should contact the High Commission of Canada in Dhaka for assistance before filing a police report. Women should not go to police stations alone.

Do you have any security suggestions to share? Please post your comments.

~story and photo by Belinda Meggitt~

Originally published in the New Age, Feb. 13, 2008. More photos available here.

For a country that blossoms with national pride, the majority of Bangladeshis fail to respect the country’s natural wonders.

St Martin’s Island, where once thousands of migratory birds sought refuge, turtles laid eggs and coral grew, now bustles with migratory tourists and growing piles of plastic. Economic development drives tourism, but what tourists and hotel owners fail to acknowledge is their impact. The gold rush of tourism to St Martin’s Island will be short-lived unless changes are made immediately.

Only a few years ago, the island was an ecological refuge. ‘It was the best place for turtle nesting and even schoolchildren protected the nests,’ recalls Elisabeth Mansur, Chief Executive Officer of Guide Tours. ‘The biodiversity was truly amazing.’

Tourists were still able to visit, but it was a form of adventure tourism. The rocky journey – via a country boat crammed with the islands supplies – limited the number of tourists, as did the one beach hut. But the tourists that came were rewarded by natural beauty, an experience that didn’t resemble a Thai beach Mecca. Now, four large vessels ply the crossing daily during high season. Most tourists stay anywhere from three hours to a little over 24. It’s not hard to imagine why the island is disappearing in a state of disrepair.

Mansur says eco-tourism was discussed at length before the hotel explosion in 2005. There was a plan to maintain St Martin’s biodiversity.

‘Private industry sat for many months making a good development plan of how soft-ecotourism and responsible travel could develop,’ says Mansur. ‘But that’s when the government went ahead and opened the land rights for people from the mainland.’

The tourist gold rush was funded from the outside, and it looks just like that. As you approach the island, garish concrete monoliths litter the beach side dwarfing the small unobtrusive local bamboo village huts. Internally, hotel rooms resemble prison cells with stains up and down the walls, but it is nothing a good paint job couldn’t fix.

Nonetheless most hotel owners refuse to focus on upkeep when hotel rooms are fully booked during the peak season. They then leave the island with their pockets bulging after just four months’ work and return next year to repeat the cycle.

This same lack of care permeates the environment. Hotels are not managing their wastewater, causing damage to fragile coral reefs and marine biodiversity. Plastic bottles and litter float in the ocean or lay strewn on the beach. The scene resembles a battlefield where dead carcasses lie, yet these ones don’t decompose. A local shop owner stated: ‘There is a lot of plastic waste and it can’t be broken down, we all know it causes a lot of environmental damage.’

A change in wildlife patterns is a symbol of that. ‘There used to be a lot of migratory birds,’ recalled the shop owner, ‘but now they don’t come due to the number of crows.’ Crows are scavenger birds that reflect the extent of rubbish polluting the island.

Turtle nesting has likewise decreased. When questioned, fisherman and local shop owners all spoke of the marked decrease in numbers. Among the reasons proposed were the increase use of dragnets by fisherman that turtles get stuck in, hotel lights on the beach that deter nesting and even large tourist boats interrupting their path. No matter what the proposed reason, an easy hypothesis to conclude is that tourism is having an impact –– an impact that will permanently change St Martin’s Island, unless the form of tourism changes.

Amongst this destructive development, locals are forced to maintain their business. Largely excluded from the tourist labour force, they continue with their traditional fishing lifestyle. Fisherman use dragnets in a desperate search for fish and it is not uncommon to see small sharks, even endangered hammerhead sharks, for sale at the local market.

Tourist inflation is also evident. Local village children are now begging for Tk 100 rather than one, a familiarity that stings like tourism in Nepal. Yet a little initiative can go a long way and some children even offer their services as guides, or their boats to go fishing.

Tourism development can be a positive force, but it has to be managed appropriately. ‘You don’t have to discourage people not to go, but they should know what’s happening,’ states Mansur.

Responsible travel is an approach to travel that minimises negative environmental and cultural impacts, but encourages an understanding and transference of knowledge. It is an approach to travel that is sustainable and will bring lasting benefits to Bangladesh’s economy. It is not a quick financial fix. As a stance against the lack of responsible travel witnessed in St Martin’s, Guide Tours has recently removed it from their packages.

What stance will you take?

(Jan 20 – DHAKA) What do you do when a devastating cyclone strikes the area that you’re about to visit?

If your name is Michael Mangano, you raise funds from your friends and family and bring money for the relief goods with your own two hands. That’s exactly what the Boston graduate student did in early January.

Mangano used online merchant Paypal to successfully raise $1,005 USD (or approx 68,000 Bangladeshi Taka) for victims of Cyclone Sidr, especially in the hard hit Sundarbans region of Bangladesh.

Watch the video:

“It’s a kind of ‘do-it-yourself’ relief work,” says Mangano. “My whole trip feels much more worthwhile because of it.”

Mangano’s original purpose was to visit Bangladesh as a tourist and to meet fellow traveller and Information Technology Specialist Mikey Leung. Upon news of the cyclone, Michael decided to raise funds from his family and friends before his visit.

With Leung’s voluntary technology support, the duo produced a Youtube.com video from the field showing the relief goods being handed over, while a series of audio podcasts tracks their progress. The purpose of the volunteer work was to prove to donors that their funds were being used and to demonstrate the idea of “Relief Tourism” to a wider audience.

“The idea of relief tourism fascinates me,” says Leung. “If travellers only knew which organizations are trustworthy, they could help support Bangladesh’s development initiatives while experiencing them first hand.”

After bank fees, a total of 65,000 Bangladeshi Taka was donated to various branches of Rupantar, a Bangladeshi non-government organisation that is supported by several international donor agencies, including USAID, ActionAID and CIDA.

“This is responsible travel in action,” says Leung. “By taking away all gaps between philanthropists and benefactors, we cut out all the bureaucracy and experience the plight of cyclone survivors first hand. It proves to be an educational and positive experience for both local and visitor.”

-30-

Funds involved:
-65,000 BDT raised after Paypal and bank transfer fees
-40,000 BDT ($580 USD) was used to purchase 17 fishing boats and milk for the village of Dhangmari
-20,000 BDT was ($290 USD) donated to an orphanage supporting child victims of the cyclone
-5,000 BDT ($75 USD) was used to purchase musical instruments in support of Rupantar’s cultural change initiatives

Background:
- Michael Mangano covered his own travel expenses personally—none of the donated funds were used for this purpose.
- Mikey Leung is currently researching a new Bradt travel guidebook to Bangladesh in which he plans to encourage travellers to visit Bangladesh in a bid to reduce poverty
- Rupantar is a well-known and respected organization supporting the development of Bangladesh’s south-western region. A branch of the organization supports eco-tourism in the Sundarbans.

Contacts:
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
Mikey Leung, Freelance Journalist and IT Specialist
+880 1714 361 173 // www.joybangla.info // joybangla.info [AT] gmail.com

KHULNA, BANGLADESH
Nazmul Azam (David)
+880 1711 829 414 // ret [AT] khulna.bangla.net

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
Michael Mangano, Boston University
+1 617 721 4749 // mjmangano [AT] hotmail.com

People with sensitive stomachs need not be worried while travelling India’s most well-touristed trail, says Mikey Leung

It was in a Pizza Hut, well within viewing distance of the Taj Mahal’s towers, that I finally caved in. A Britney song droned overhead, cheapening the far-too-familiar atmosphere. Tonight we would dine on Pasta Arabiata, a cuisine fit only for the modern Mughal aristocrat—i.e. the India tourist. Across the table sat my upbeat father, for we had just seen the Taj Mahal a few hours earlier. Despite that wonderful moment when I first gazed upon the Taj’s towers, I finally gave up on being an explorer in India—the way I am in Bangladesh each and every day.

Watch the video:

It was day six on our India tour, and fairly indicative of how the trip was going. With an iron stomach and an anthropologist’s curiosity, I felt rather at odds with our culinary choices that evening. We were, after all, visiting a heartland of Northern Indian cuisine. But really, I should have known better when I noticed that my father couldn’t say the words curry and diarrhea in separate sentences. And thus, our trip had become a colossal battle of the traveller’s tolerance vs. the tourist’s tummy, and I was now waving my Pizza Hut napkin in defeat. Meanwhile, my father, whose naturally downturned lips make him appear to wear a kind of permanent frown, was hidden behind his menu, no doubt choosing gaily between fusilli and spaghetti.

Our lightning tour was filled with gastronomically preventive pitstops like these. Every year, millions of visitors, especially those from other Asian countries, now race around India’s Golden Triangle track. A typical trip covers India’s most impressive architectural masterpieces while buzzing through its countryside at something near warp nine. Despite these sites being awash in monsoonal torrents of foreign tourists, the Mughal Kingdom’s lavish tastes still manage to exude their graceful charms several hundred years later, like being at an ancient airy banquet hall with room for wealthy guests from all over the world. The extravagant riches that the kingdom amassed from its subordinate neighbours far surpasses most other measures of conspicuous consumption that can be contemplated in Asia. Apparently, displaying your wealth was as popular then as it is today in modern India. But today, it is the tourists who (dis)grace the private audience halls of the former Mughal court.

Every month, thousands now stream through Delhi’s old city to stand under the Jain Mosque’s imposing and inspiring facade. Dozens wait under the Amber Fort gates every morning in Jaipur for an elephant ride to its lofty sandstone terraces. And over at Agra’s Taj Mahal, millions of yearly arrivals journey to admire the jewel in India’s crown, a site that still remains as timeless and impressive 250 years after Shah Jahan’s original vision became reality. Thankfully, that breathless moment when one first gazes upon the Taj can’t be outclassed by bazillion other visitors you must now share the experience with.

But it’s precisely that market that brings out the least savory parts of the India experience. For those unversed with the subcontinent’s cultural nuances, the stench and the rot on its streets hits you like a punch in the face. No doubt that tourists have plenty to frown at, as the ‘real’ India lies splayed out on its streets, distinctly unpackaged and definitely unruly. On their well-heeled trail follows a circus of touts, guides, beggars and salesmen, each trying to hustle some honey from the masses. In each city of the triangle, a franchised fraternity of pizzas, pastas and Pepsi offer slices of home.

In retrospect, I’d been far too idealistic of my father’s perspective, hoping that he would enjoy the subcontinent’s unpredictable nature as I do in Bangladesh. I’d thought the trip adventurous, deluding myself that he, the 60-year-old straight-laced electrical engineer, would somehow enjoy nearly slipping on cow dung and sidling through India’s oceans of humanity. I attempted to shield him from the chaos by booking a fully arranged tour, with hotels whose rack rates quote dollars instead of rupees. In the end, we learned more about each other’s nature than we did from the India that surrounded us.

Mikey Leung is a freelance journalist and photographer. He is currently researching a new Bradt guidebook to the subcontinent’s hidden gem: Bangladesh.

Bangladesh will become a traveler’s destination, but not the way you imagine, argues Mikey Leung.

This article originally published in the Daily Star’s Forum Magazine at this weblink.

The number of reasons that travelers avoid Bangladesh cannot even be counted on two hands.

On foreign television screens, riots and floods are the leading actors; their supporting cast is no less extraordinary. Pseudo-Islamic extremism garners a major role, while abject poverty plays like a forgettable soundtrack. Interminable corruption adds to the atmosphere of a Shakespearean tragedy: the characters always suffer inescapably under the weight of their own extraordinary gluttony.

For a country whose world reputation seems to be constantly drowning, it is hard to imagine that Bangladesh will one day become a traveler’s destination on par with its neighbours. How is this possible? In five years, the Bangladesh travel industry will be totally unrecognisable compared to the industry of today.

Tourism in Bangladesh is inevitable

Consider the Chinese tourism experience, a path this nation already treads. Little more than 10 years ago, Chinese domestic tourism was infantile, in the same way that Bangladeshi tourism is now embryonic. Powered by an upwardly mobile middle class, the industry evolved new tourism products while promoting existing destinations. The market was literally captive: very few Chinese had the means to travel outside China. Even today, very few do.

Even if Bangladesh’s tourism market wasn’t growing, worldwide travel trends, by virtue of their exponential increase, would inevitably prop it up. This is because intrepid travelers can and do hunger for new cultures and unvisited frontiers, as it is in the adventurer’s nature to seek both the exotic and the unknown. Each year, more and more travelers are willing to look over India’s border and discover what this country is really about. Seen in this light, Bangladesh is truly an unexplored treasure.

Responsibility lies with operators to drive the market

That being said, it is totally unrealistic to expect Cambodia’s overnight success or even India’s robust growth. The Sundarbans, as Bangladesh’s prime attraction, is simply not spectacular or iconic enough to prop up an entire industry the way that Angkor does. Nevertheless, local operators are now aware that people, both Bengali and otherwise, want to take holidays from their high-pressure urban lifestyles, and that untrammeled beauty lies just outside the atrocious conditions of Dhaka.

Like it or not, Bangladesh’s interim government now provides travelers with a form of relative stability, which goes a long way when planning trips inside the desh. But as the government remains unaccountable to its people, we cannot look to Parjatan, the national tourism organisation, for stewardship. The responsibility to manage and drive the industry forward lies squarely on the shoulder of Bangladesh’s tourism operators, who also have the most to gain from this growth.

In order for local operators to increase their share of the meagre but lucrative inbound market — i.e. the market that spends dollars, euros and pounds instead of taka — a change in priorities is required first. Marketers must realise that Bangladesh can only promote itself as an alternative travel destination and on the grounds of poverty alleviation, using means that go far beyond the slogan: “Visit Bangladesh Before Tourists Come” [sic].

“Responsible Travel” (RT) — www.responsibletravel.com — is a philosophy that is redefining the way people travel around the world, and the term is much more broad and encompassing than the well-battered word “eco-tourism.” Nowadays, under the auspices of RT, the discerning consumer wants a holiday that minimises his/her impact on the environment and detrimental influence on local cultures, while simultaneously enlightening themselves about the world abroad. Events such as the Banglalink International Coastal Cleanup, held in 2007, are encouraging in this regard.

Travelers, especially the kind that would travel to Bangladesh, aren’t content to lie like beached whales for weeks at a stretch. People want trips that broaden their life perspective and teach them far more about the diversity and cultures of our world. Bangladesh offers plenty of life lessons and eye-opening experiences, none of which top any of the “best of” or “top ten” lists — so why bother focusing on that humdrum market? Local operators must strengthen themselves on the responsible travel niche market and brief themselves on its requirements.

Serious perception changes are needed

Speaking of markets, the industry lacks marketing professionalism, which is severely crippling the industry’s inbound tourism growth. Because international travelers have a much higher service expectation than most domestic travelers, they judge operators (and hence destinations) on the basis of their professionalism. And although there may be many professional operations in Bangladesh, both large and small, there is a terrible lack of connection between their products and the discerning dollar-spending traveler.

Marketing is all about influencing the consumer’s perception of the product, and Bangladesh should stop leaving the determination of its image to the world’s merciless mainstream media. Instead, local operators should begin providing truthful, well researched and easy-to-understand information on what a journey to the country will be like, and why it will be memorable (see the Bangladesh section of www.undiscovered-destinations.com for an example of good, straightforward marketing).

Most operators have also seriously overlooked how to capture the captive market, i.e. locally based expatriates, and decent marketing would also help in this regard. Most of these expatriates suffer from a lack of knowledge on what to do and how to do it, as there is very little local or up-to-date info on the nuts and bolts of a journey in Bangladesh. Many perceive travel in the country to be inconvenient, unsafe and/or insecure, a perception that is mostly unfounded because of a lack of objective and adequate travel information.

At this point, you may have noticed the use of the term “traveler” instead of “tourist,” and this demonstrates the subtleties of effective marketing. A tourist is the kind seeking an ordinary holiday, where as the traveler seeks unique experiences that broaden their world. Because most expatriates who live in Bangladesh have already had the benefit of living outside their home nations, most consider themselves “travelers” and have more sophisticated tastes than the simple Thailand tourist.

Focus on strengths

To recap: thus far we’ve established that a) Bangladesh has a terrible world reputation that must be changed, and b) there already exists a captive market in Bangladesh (i.e. locally-based expatriates). So the question thus becomes: how do we change the perception of this target market? A good start would be to improve Bangladesh’s already existing “draw-cards” in the eyes of those who live here already.

The Sundarbans should be the first and foremost target of this image improvement. But it would help to actually improve the visitor experience of the Sundarbans first. Such initiatives need not be difficult, costly nor complicated. A visitor information centre, even one with the most basic of facilities such as posters and photographs, would go a long way in assisting the curious visitor to understand the unique eco-system at work in the mangrove forest. It would also help tourists to envision the lives of understandably shy wildlife, especially that of the Royal Bengal Tiger. As tourism growth occurs in Bangladesh, its impact needs to be carefully managed in the Sundarbans, lest the tourists destroy what they’ve come to experience.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) could also use a perception adjustment, as most local people who live there will tell you that it is safe to travel inside the tracts and that the security risk is terribly overblown (of course, there are some caveats depending on where you go). However, most foreign countries advise against travel to the CHT (or all but essential travel, depending on which country).

Again, the truth is that the CHT is one of Bangladesh’s most beautiful regions, and quite a treat to visit on the basis of its cultural, geographical and culinary diversity. When taking local advice, a journey to Rangamati and Bandarbans can be quite safe and very much a highlight of a visit to Bangladesh. Perhaps adventurous travelers are willing to look deeper, ask more questions and learn the truth about potential visits to the CHT. But, like it or not, the great majority of people are content to listen to their government’s advice, which in turn takes the advice of the Bangladesh government when creating its advisories. It is a shame that the Bangladesh government and its military still has so much to hide about the hill tracts, which makes visitor arrivals all the more important and necessary.

A not-so-obvious suggestion: Focus on the captive audience

Draw-cards aside, the tourism industry needs to create and aggressively market new products that focus solely on the expatriate market, as there are a tremendous number of expatriates who rarely leave Dhaka, and so their perception of Bangladesh is based solely on their impressions of the capital city. Not only is this a serious and grave error, these are the impressions that expatriates take to other countries around the world.

The fact is that expatriates are the springboard for accessing new tourist markets as one can never underestimate the power of the word of mouth. It is very rare to meet short-term visitors to Bangladesh, and the ones that do visit for less than a month are usually here as guests of people that already live here.

Currently, this same expatriate market generates a section of people who mostly choose to take their holidays outside Bangladesh instead of inside, which once again demonstrates the terrible lack of linkages between Bangladesh’s professional operators and the proposed target market.

It will be expensive and ineffective for local operators to reach the worldwide market at the current time, so this is why operators should focus on the captive audience. The goal of these initiatives is to create a buzz that will generate new visitor arrivals in the country and eventually drive the tourism market forward. But operators need to convince the captive market first, before it can do any kind of job reaching the outside world.

For all of its downsides, Bangladesh does have extraordinary tourism potential. Opportunities for exploration abound, the countryside is beautiful and Bangladesh’s economy is plodding forward despite some unfathomable hindrances. In order to progress to another level in the worldwide tourism playing field, the country must go about the difficult task of changing its world image, a process that first begins from within.

Mikey Leung is a freelance travel journalist. He is currently researching a new book on Bangladesh (www.joybangla.info) for Bradt Travel Guides, a UK-based alternative guidebook publisher. He is also a former tour leader with Australia-based Intrepid Travel (www.intrepidtravel.com). This article originally published here.