BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) has proposed to home ministry for issuing electronic visa (e-visa) to foreigners for giving a boost to the country’s highly potential but untapped tourism sector.
“Through Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry, we have sent a letter to the home ministry for easing visa system as well as issuing frequent multiple entry to help us in increasing foreign tourists,” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BTB Akhteruzzaman Khan Kabir told BSS Sunday.
He said visa procedure is a major challenge for country like Bangladesh to attract tourists. If the e-visa initiated, it will be a milestone for the country’s tourism industry as the number of foreign tourists defiantly increased, chief of the national tourism organization said.
As per the UNWTO, many countries now easing their visa procedure for further flourishing their respective tourism industry, he said adding, recently Turkey and Sri Lanka initiated e-visa system and they have already started to get fruit of it.
Kabir said presently foreign tourists face lots of inquiries when they seek multiple entry for Bangladesh. “We proposed to ease the multiple entry system to give the foreign tourists flexibility in their tour plans,” he said.
Under the proposal of e-visa, any foreign nationals will be able to apply for Bangladesh visa by sending scan copy of their passport and paying visa fees by international credit card through Bangladesh Home Ministry’s website.
Bangladesh immigration office will issue visa through a barcode after getting all clearance from foreign missions and other agencies. The foreign national just need to print the barcode and show it while entering Bangladesh.
Shafiqul Islam, Additional Secretary (security and immigration) of Home Affairs Ministry said they agreed with the idea of initiating e-visa in principle and have the plan to introduce it.
“We will start the work for introducing e-visa shortly, but we need some infrastructure setup for initiating the new kind of visa,” he said.
Firstly, he said immigration police department needs to setup high internet connectivity with all Bangladesh missions abroad and to procure modern barcode reader machines to launch e-visa.
Wiping out any possibility of security hazard of e-visa, Islam said “We would have to introduce e-visa for attracting more foreign visitors as other countries have already started to initiate it.”
Tourist arrival dropped 50 per cent in 2013 as the country passed through political violence, frequent hartals and uncertainty giving a negative image to tourists about the country. The tourist arrival in Bangladesh in 2013 was 278,780 as against 588,193 in 2012, official sources said.
Though tourist arrival posted more than 50 per cent drop in 2013, earnings recorded over 20 per cent growth during the same year. The earnings from the tourism sector stood at 121.5 million US dollars in 2013 compared to 100.75 million US dollars in 2012, Bangladesh Bank source said.
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has forecast that total contribution of travel and tourism sector to Bangladesh GDP will rise by 7.9 percent in the 2014.
