A report carried in a national English daily on Wednesday said, after a long 10-year break, the government is going to reengage itself in tour operation business from this month. Though apparently the news sounds interesting, but as in most cases, the government enterprises showed poor performance almost since their inception. Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) is also not exceptionally run. Therefore, this has now become a question to the industry insiders whether the government should make business with BPC or not. We expressed our concern in fear that it might incur some losses and will ultimately create an anxiety to the tourism industry leaving a bad impact on the whole sector.
Though there is a national tourism policy in Bangladesh ensuring private sector participation, but the sector still remains in the nascent stage. The government announced it as a thrust sector industry. Nonetheless, this sector is suffering very much for the shortage of qualified and efficient manpower. Parjatan Corporation could not shape up quality tourism products in the country even after 43 years of independence for this shortcoming. The report informed, BPC will resume its tour operations as per the directives of the civil aviation and tourism minister as he would like to involve the public sector in tour operations side by side with the private sector for providing high quality services. As the minister came from the left political arena, so he might have a sympathetic outlook to the public investment in business. But, in the Bangladesh context, the public sector projects as a whole turned to be a prey of political misappropriation, disbursing public money to the opportunists – a way of fattening political musclemen and activists. Therefore, the government shouldn’t move to any business initiative. Rather, it can patronize the sector to flourish it in many ways as the country has an immense possibility of earning through tourism and BPC can play an active role as a facilitator in this sector.
We are here to say that the government seems to have been lagging behind from the vision for the development of the tourism sector. There is hardly any effective public private partnership in policy formulation and implementation for the greater development of the sector. Experts opined, with the present bureaucratic mindset in power, the government is not capable of formulating a strategy to steer the development of the tourism sector. The country failed to attract tourists from home and abroad due to a lack of infrastructure facilities, security reasons and inhospitable management. We hold the view that the government has no business in business. It should play as a facilitator and not as an actor in business.
Tourism has to grow without bureaucratic sloth and inefficiency. Tourism should be allowed to grow as a business challenge.
