Tourism entrepreneurs call for industry-friendly policy reforms

A group of tourism entrepreneurs and related professionals have presented eight demands, including the reform of the tour operator registration and management rules to advance Bangladesh's tourism industry.

At the same time, they protested the withdrawal of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) exemption on tour operator services in the national budget for the fiscal 2024-2025.

These demands were made during a press conference organised under the banner of the "Anti-Discrimination Tourism Movement Parishad" at the National Press Club in the capital on Thursday (26 September).

"Some clauses of the Bangladesh Tour Operator (Registration and Management) Rules have disappointed us, and we feel apprehensive," said Md Shariful Islam Sharif, managing partner of Vision Holidays, while reading a prepared statement at the press conference.

He explained that several sections of the rules are incompatible with the realities faced by tourism industry professionals in Bangladesh and, in many cases, are contradictory and conflicting.

Sharif pointed out that Section 3 of the rules states that along with the registration application form, individuals or organisations must provide a copy of the land ownership deed or rental agreement as proof of business address, along with other documents and a bank certificate of Tk10 lakh as initial business capital.

In addition, under Section 5, applicants are required to pay a registration certificate fee of Tk51,000 and provide a security deposit of Tk3 lakh to the registration authority, he added.

"This means that a tour operator, guide, or tourism entrepreneur must have a one-time financial capacity of at least Tk13.56 lakh to obtain business approval or a license," Sharif expressed concerns.

Sharif said, in the current reality of the tourism industry in Bangladesh, it is absolutely impossible for most of the tourism-entrepreneurs and professionals to implement or follow these conditions except for a handful of institutions.

There are thousands of tourism entrepreneurs, tourism guides, and professionals in different parts of the country, who do not have the ability to provide this huge amount of financial security and bank status certificates. While tourism-entrepreneurs and traders have business addresses in some areas, tour guides have very limited financial capacity to obtain trade licenses and operate offices.

Among their other demands are the cancellation of the requirement for a Tk10 lakh bank balance certificate as initial capital and the removal of the provision mandating a Tk3 lakh security deposit to the registration authority. They also called for reducing the registration certificate fee to Tk15,000 for a three-year period, instead of the current Tk50,000.

Additionally, they proposed the formation of a review committee composed of tourism entrepreneurs and professionals to provide recommendations for revising problematic clauses in the laws and regulations.

Other demands include the removal of the requirement for tour guides to submit a trade license or office rental agreement, and the introduction of a system for registering, certifying, and identifying guides through training and examinations conducted by the Bangladesh Tourism Board.

They also requested the implementation of two types of guiding licenses: national and regional.

Finally, they called for a reform of the National Tourism Policy 2010 and urged greater involvement of tourism sector professionals in the activities of the Bangladesh Tourism Board.