Business Desk :
The 9th Asian Tourism Fair (ATF) will be held at Dhaka’s International Convention City Bashundhara (ICCB) from Thursday till 1 October.
Around 130 tourist organisations from at least eight countries are going to participate in the three-day event.
The organiser of the fair, travel magazine Parjatan Bichitra, arranged a press conference to brief reporters about the event at a city hotel on Sunday.
Several hotels, motels, resorts, cruise lines, airlines, tour operators and theme parks among others are all set to participate in the fair.
“Apart from Bangladesh, more than 50 foreign companies from Nepal, Thailand, India, Bhutan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Lithuania will participate in the fair. The fair will include various attractive travel offers, hotel, resort or package bookings in the upcoming tourism season,” Mohiuddin Helal, editor of the Parjatan Bichitra said at the press conference.
The fair will remain open from 10am to 7pm every day from Thursday till 1 October.
A person will have to pay Tk30 for an entry ticket. The same ticket can be used to avail 50% discount for entering Fantasy Kingdom – the fair’s entertainment partner.
There will be raffle draws for the participants as well.
Addressing the press conference, State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism, Md Mahbub Ali said, “Last May we introduced on-arrival visas for people travelling to Bangladesh.
“But the whole visa process should be made easier to attract foreign tourists.”
“The formulation of the long-expected master plan [for the country’s tourism sector] is almost at the end and will be available within December this year.
“Through this plan, our tourism industry will grow further,” the state minister added.
