1. Policy Overview for Bangladesh Tourism

Tourism policy of a country provides a broad guideline and direction based on which tourism systems should function. The National Tourism Policy (NTP) of Bangladesh has initiated strategies to platform the economic, cultural, social, heritage, and environmental values that the industry can provide. It focuses on multidimensional facets of the industry. With a qualitative research orientation, this chapter provides altogether an overview of the tourism policy that has been taken by the government to promote Bangladesh as one of the preferred destinations. The policy prioritizes several types of operation such as beach and marine tourism, forest-based tourism, rural and riverine tourism, cultural tourism, religious tourism, and community tourism. Apart from the in-house strategies to foster the tourism industry, it focuses on the importance of collaboration with regional unions and international organizations. However, the NTP largely fails to reach desired goals and objectives due to the lack of apprehension of “inside” and “outside” policy factors as well as policy process. A strong research-base is inevitable to optimize tourism benefits from a tourism policy. This chapter is expected to help future tourism policymakers in Bangladesh in the development of an updated policy instrument.