Forest-based tourism in bangladesh: status, problems, and prospects

TOURISMOS: AN INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF TOURISM

Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 2010, pp. 163-172

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FOREST-BASED TOURISM IN BANGLADESH:

STATUS, PROBLEMS, AND PROSPECTS

Mahbubul Alam1

Ehime University

Yasushi Furukawa

Kochi University

Salma Akter

Kochi University

Bangladesh is a land of diverse forest-based natural attractions throughout the

evergreen, semi-evergreen, and mangrove forest ecosystems. The article attempts

at exploring various dimensions of ecotourism industry and critically analyzes the

relationship among the stakeholders, overall strength-weakness of ecotourism

sector and impediments hindering its development. National Parks, Ecoparks,

Wildlife Sanctuaries, Game Reserves, and the like have been developed in the

natural forest ecosystems to attract tourists from home and abroad. Cheap

transportation, lodging and associated costs, unique scenic beauty and wilderness

of all sites and socio-cultural diversity of indigenous communities living in the

forest together make up the strength of the industry as a whole. The study

identifies a number of impediments, including conflict among the stakeholders

and forest degradation hindering expansion of ecotourism industry. For

sustainable development of forest-based tourism, traditional ‘Top-down’

management approach is suggested to avoid and voice of all stakeholders needs

to be considered in decision-making.

Keywords: ecotourism, policy, stakeholder, SWOT analysis

INTRODUCTION

Forest-based tourism, popularly known as ‘ecotourism’ that blends

‘ecology’ and ‘tourism’, is defined as environmentally responsible travel

to natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and

accompanying cultural features, both past and present) that promote

conservation, have a low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active

socio-economic involvement of local peoples (The Nature Conservancy,

© University of the Aegean. Printed in Greece. Some rights reserved. ISSN: 1790-8418

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