ZCZC
BSS-10
OIC-TOURISM
Bangladesh eyes on its share in Islamic heritage tourism
By Tanzim Anwar
DHAKA, Feb 3, 2018 (BSS) – Bangladesh eyes on a new door to open up for
holidaymakers offering its Islamic heritage as tourism ministers of OIC
(Organization of Islamic Cooperation) member state are set to gather in Dhaka
this week to discuss various issues regarding Islamic tourism.
“As the first ever host of any OIC tourism ministers gathering, we
consider it as an opportunity to promote our tourism potential and heritages
to the Muslim world,” Chief Executive Officer of Bangladesh Tourism Board
(BTB) Dr Nasir Uddin told BSS today.
The 10th Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers (ICTM) will take place
from February 5 to 7 at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel here with the theme –
‘Promoting Regional Integration through Tourism’.
“We are ready to welcome tourism ministers or their representatives from
57 OIC member countries at the meeting to showcase our Islamic heritage in
front of the leaders of the Muslim world,” Dr Nasir said.
He said the OIC understands Bangladesh has huge potential in the tourism
sector and encouraged Bangladesh to the event and to discuss ways of
cooperation among member states.
The conference will discuss core issues including development of Islamic
tourism, progress on tourism infrastructure projects, OIC tourism fairs and
OIC City of Tourism Award (2019 and 2020).
Referring to the tradition of declaring two cities of OIC member
countries as “Capital of Islamic Tourism” at every meeting of ICTM, the BTB
chief said the name of Dhaka would be proposed this time to select as capital
of Islamic tourism either for 2019 or 2020.
The last 9th session declared Madina and the Iranian Tabriz city as the
capitals of Islamic tourism for 2017 and 2018 respectively.
“I am highly hopeful that Dhaka, the city of mosque that hosts numbers
of Indo-Islamic architecture will be selected. If so, we will make a yearlong
plan for Dhaka to attract more tourists from across the Muslim world to visit
our Islamic heritage,” Dr Nasir said.
The BTB is also taking preparation to propose for being the host to
organize the 5th OIC Tourism Fair here in 2020.
Apart from the core agenda of ICTM – development and promotion of
Islamic culture and heritage – the 10th session will also review progress of
the tourism projects in different countries those are being implemented in
line with joint cooperation on Islamic tourism.
“We (Bangladesh) will also place some new projects related to Islamic
tourism to implement in Bangladesh,” BTB CEO said.
With a market potential of more than 50 Muslim countries and no less
than 1.6 billion Muslims, tremendous opportunities await those who are
willing to meet the demands for Muslim-friendly tourism products and
services.
“We would like to exploit every possible opportunity to attract more
tourists in our country. We had held an international Buddhist tourism
circuit conference in Dhaka earlier to get more Buddhists tourists, now we
have the opportunity to showcase our Islamic heritage in front of the world
to attract more and more Muslim tourists specially from middle east and far
east,” Dr Nasir said.
The ICTM is being held in different OIC member countries in every two
years. Its 9th session was held in Niamey, the capital of Niger in 2015. As
per the tradition, the chairmanship of the conference will be transferred to
Bangladesh tourism minister from his Niger counterpart (current chair of
ICTM) for next two years at the opening ceremony of the upcoming 10th ICTM
session.
A recent OIC study revealed that in 2015 the estimated number of Muslim
tourists were 117 million, representing close to 10 percent of the entire
tourism industry. This number is forecasted to grow to 168 million visitors
by 2020 and 11 percent of the market segment with a market value projected to
exceed US Dollar 200 billion.
BSS/SPL/TA/IJ/1505 hrs