Foreign consultant to formulate tourism master plan
The government has launched a process to hire a foreign consultant to frame a tourism master plan as part of an intensified campaign to promote the sector, officials said yesterday.
We have already short listed seven foreign consultancy firms for the purpose, Bangladesh Tourism Boards (BTB) chief executive officer (CEO) Akhtaruzzaman Khan Kabir said at a media interaction at his office.
He added that the BTB would soon issue them request for proposal or REP asking them to come up with their technical and financial proposals to formulate the master plan.
The BTB chief said the selected foreign consultant would be appointed along with a local marketing company in next three months to prepare the draft of the master plan within next two years.
Kabirs comments came months after the BTB floated an Expression of Interest (EOI) internationally invited intending foreign firms to take part in the bidding process under a consortium with a local company, which it thought was needed to ensure incorporation of the Bangladesh perspective in the master plan.
BTB officials earlier said they received proposals from some highly reputed international consultancy firms having experiences of preparing tourism master plan for other countries.
We will float the RFP within one month and hopefully award the task to the most appropriate firm in subsequent two months . . . we set target of starting the task of formulating the master plan by this current fiscal to be completed in next two years, Kabir said.
He said effective coordination among all the ministries and stakeholders required the formulation of the master plan for the tourism sector while the proposed document was also expected to identify countries from where Bangladesh can draw more tourists, make an international marketing policy and explore investment opportunities. The master plan will also find out what kind of tourist friendly infrastructure and how many hotels and motels do we need to make Bangladesh as single country tourist destination . . . will be an action oriented strategy rather just an academic paper, he said.
