Tourism Fair 22: Most visitors interested in domestic destinations
The fair will help revive Bangladesh's tourism industry from the Covid shock, the organizer hoped
After a two-year break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the largest tourism fair in the country, "10th MasterCard Bangladesh Travel and Tourism Fair-2022," managed to attract a large number of visitors, most of whom showed interest in visiting places within the country.
The three-day international fair, organised by Tour Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB), kicked off on 30 March at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center in Dhaka.
Local and foreign tour operators, travel agents, tourism firms, airlines, hotels, resorts, amusement parks, and transport companies, took part in the event with a wide range of attractive offers and packages for travelling within the country and abroad.
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Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Md Mokammel Hossain, inaugurated the fair facilitating at least 80 stalls, including 8 pavilions.
The attending firms were busy discussing their offers at the stalls on Friday as visitors thronged the venue at the last moment. Most visitors, however, were browsing domestic tour plans and packages.
Hoping to offset the pandemic shock, tour operators were busy offering striking packages with deep discounts.
"Avijatrik" has been working as a local tour operator for almost seven years. After a long pause during the pandemic, it resumed operations in October last year. The operator offered a 3-day Sundarbans tour, a 2-day Sajek valley tour, and a 4-day Bandarban tour package for visitors.
"Domestic tourists are our core customers," Nadeem Sarkar, co-founder of Avijatrik, told The Business Standard (TBS).
"We tour different places on our own air-conditioned boat. Locals mainly prefer visiting Cox's Bazar and St Martin, but we want people to go beyond the usual spots. We are giving a 10% discount on the occasion of this fair," he said, adding that the operator got an overwhelming response from visitors on the last day of the fair.
Nazrul Islam, manager of TripLover, told TBS, "We were giving a 20% discount on domestic and international flights to visitors."
"We want more people to travel. The purpose of the fair is to showcase a variety of tour operators so that tourists have options to choose," he said.
Heaven Tour & Resort Ltd offered various packages including air tickets for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Swarna Das, assistant manager of Saimon Group's "Sri-Lankan Holidays", told TBS they were offering 6-day and 5-night tour packages to the Maldives and Sri Lanka for Tk1.05 lakh.
Visitor Sharif Ahmed said he was unaware of the many premium tour operators in Bangladesh.
Another visitor, Sharmin Islam, said, "Coming to the fair, I picked up a three-day, two-night Sajek tour family package from an agency. It saved me a lot of money."
The title sponsor of the fair, 'MasterCard' stall manager Md Ujjal said, "We were giving 50% discount on the first-year card fees at the fair. MasterCard has other facilities too and a good number of people took us up on our offers."
According to the organisers, B2B sessions, seminars, country presentations, press conferences and numerous cultural events took place at the fair.
On the closing day, the Bangladesh Tourism Board organised a "Mujib's Bangladesh Night" at the Hotel InterContinental Dhaka.
The fair will help revive Bangladesh's tourism industry from the Covid shock, the organiser hoped.
The three-day fair was cosponsored by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, the Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industries, and Bangladesh Tourist Police.
