Beautiful ‘Underrated’ Bangladesh

Beautiful ‘Underrated’ Bangladesh

Close your eyes. Now imagine, you have a long holiday and you will get 50% off. Where do you see yourself traveling? May be Thailand? Or Is it Indonesia? Maybe you are thinking of a Euro trip? Now open your eyes. Ask yourself, how many of you have thought of Bangladesh? You are now thinking, “what’s there to see in Bangladesh? I have seen Cox’s Bazaar”. Sure you have, but have you been to Kutubdia? Some of you of course have been to Bandarban, but have you conquered Keokradong? Ever heard of Amiakum, Ramsagar, Birishiri?  Some of you are probably googling these right now and are mesmerized by the pictures. Yes, our country is so beautiful yet so underrated.

We proudly show off on how many countries we’ve been to yet we don’t know the name of our 64 districts. Travelers from all over the world visits India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal and other neighboring countries. They don’t even consider visiting in Bangladesh. It’s like we are not even in the radar. The tourism board recorded 778,143 inbound tourists last year and the country made revenue of $97.05 million from foreign tourists. About 70 percent of tourists prefer visiting Cox's Bazar and Chittagong Hill Tracts, followed by Sundarban and Sylhet. Although in last 4 years, the tourism sector has a growth of more than 500% in outbound tourism and more than 700% in domestic tourism, but we are still far behind from where we should be. 

Now, let’s do a dissection in a relatively new popular destination. Travelers are there all the time visiting places like Bagan, Mandalay, Lake Inle, Ngapali, Mrauk-U etc. These places were not even discovered 4 years ago. Before foreigners started going there, the infrastructure needed to be developed and before that, the local people started visiting there and promoting it to everyone. Our country has places like Nafa-khum with one of the largest waterfalls in the country, Tazing Dong (also known as Bijay) is a peak of Bangladesh and officially, the biggest mountain too, Lakkatura, the most scenic tea garden is also a unique place but most of us  have not even heard of these places and hence, these places are deprived of proper tourist attention that they deserve. The moral of the story: If you don’t love your country, don’t expect others to admire it. 

I graduated from a University where 98% people leave the country and never come back. I wanted to stay back because I wanted to do something for my country. I want to change the way Bangaldeshi people travel within or outside the country. My goal is to put Bangladesh in the traveller’s map so that inbound tourism can contribute a lot in our economy. If an average person like me can have this big dream, now imagine what would happen if 1,000 talented people come forward, roll up their sleeves and start making changes. 

This is our country, our responsibility. Let’s not just be proud of our history, it’s time that we create new history and make tourism in Bangladesh exhilarating like never before.

Ridwan Hafiz

Founder and CEO of Go Zayaan Ltd.

(Go Zayaan is one of the largest and fastest growing OTAs in Bangladesh and co-founder and People’s Champ of Analyzen, which is the country’s first and largest digital marketing agency.)