Bangladesh with other countries of the world observed The World Tourism Day on Sunday. Locally, the day was observed as part of a programme ‘Visit Bangladesh 2016’with colourful rallies, discussion meetings, etc.  It is envisaged that Bangladesh has the potential to earn a great deal of foreign currencies as well as generate a great deal of economic activities--locally-- by developing its tourism sector. This is possible through using its geographic location and manifold bounties to attract hordes of  foreign tourists interested in natural, ecological, heritage and archaelogy based tourism.
Some countries solely depend on tourism as their main sector of economy. Singapore is the leader of tourism based economy. 75% of the total national income of Singapore comes from this sector. Next to Singapore is Taiwan. They earn 65% of their total income from this. To see the magic of tourism, we don’t need to go far from our home. Take the example of Maldives. Apparently, the entire Maldivian economy depends on tourism.
    A study revealed that Bangladesh is one of the ten highly prospective  markets for tourism. It has been observed that the numbers of tourist are increasing every year in Bangladesh. But it also true that, the number of tourists in Bangladesh is not increasing at the rate of world increase. Tourism experts observe that, in near future most of the world tourists will be from Asia, mostly from India and China. 73% of them will visit Asian tourists spots. If Bangladesh succeeds in gaining even a portion of this market, then it would be a great boost to its economy.
These focuses are showing the horizon for investors to invest in this sector. Investors can invest in establishing tourism infrastructures in Bangladesh like entertaining facilities, accommodation facilities, communication facilities, etc. There is scarcity of enough air routes between cities of our country. This can be a good sector for investment by potential investors in this sector.
Then the maximum of 10 years tax holiday for investors can be extended to, say 15 years or more, to create more incentives. Currently Sri Lanka is providing a maximum of 20 years as tax holiday to new investors in tourism sector. Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) has suggested the changing of its existing structure.
There are also ideas of branding Bangladesh to the outer world. All of these suggestions and plans will have to energetically pursued.
The spin-offs from tourism are multi-faceted.  It creates direct and indirect employment in a large number of service industries and in the growth of these industries. The spending by foreign tourists can be a big booster for the country’s foreign currency reserve. Considering these factors, the development of this sector would indeed deserve the greatest attention from our government.