A.K.M. Rafiqul Islam
Executive Officer, Marketing & PR
Bangladesh Tourism Board
Bangladesh is mostly an
unexplored tourist destination in the world. That it is a country of life-time
experience for the visitors is less known to the large international community.
But it seems very much optimistic when huge complements poured by foreign
visitors when they come with sort of pre-occupations thoughts but leave with
unbelievable memories and experiences.
It is undeniable that the country becomes the
headlines of the world news because of some unenthusiastic incidents and
natural disasters. Because of regular
visit of such phomenon, a mixed perception shaped itself for the country which
is confronting to marketing and promotional initiatives. In addition fewer
moves towards image management of the country, the situation faced not so much
of changes at the outset. But in the last five to seven years, changes have
begun to turn around.
Bangladesh is remaining many
steps behind from south Asian Countries which have made remarkable progress in
the field of tourism development. By the time the neighboring countries have
made some progress on the way, Bangladesh did not start even. Thus the country
started very late to promote tourism as the economic sector to contribute to
the national economy.
Soon after the liberation in 1971,
Bangladesh established a public tourism organization with the dual
responsibility of promotion and commercial operations of tourist installations
and services. The organization set up tourist accommodation and few other
facilities specially in the tourist attractions and the urbane area for
domestic and international tourists. The entity acted the role of the pioneer
to encourage private sector to invest in the tourist industry development also.
The job is modestly done by this organization, but not enough to cope with the
pace of tourism development and marketing opportunities.
Besides this, the organization is responsible
for playing the dual role, it was suffering for insufficient financial support
to carry out any campaign to promote Bangladesh as a tourist destination. With
the course of time, tourism is claiming to be an economic sector of preference
and the government started to pay much interest to promote tourism as an
economic sector of the country also. At last in 2010 Bangladesh Tourism Board
has been established as the National Tourism Organization (NTO) which is acting
as the Destination Marketing and Management Organization in the public sector
also.
Bangladesh has put its step on
the following strategies for marketing and promotion of the country
Branding &
Positioning of Destination
Destination
Awareness
Destination
Competitive advantage
Product-Market
matching
Multi-channel
promotional campaign
Bangladesh – Branding & positioning as the destination
It is earlier said that an image
has automatically developed for Bangladesh over the years which is, in fact,
one of the major issues for a place branding also. Even though the experts suggest
the chronological sequences of brand building as the success factor, we have
given a slightly deviation in that academic format of image management. In 2008
Bangladesh assumed an Identity for the international visitors; Beautiful Bangladesh with a visual
indicating the rise of a nation. After its official launching , it was a little
bit argued that the beauty is mostly subjective for the individuals. To some
critics, the way Bangladesh is perceived does not match the illustration of the
branding. But it overwhelms the critics when the beauty is defined for
Bangladesh adding a new theme to the call – Beautiful Bangladesh – the School of Life.
It was the first ever initiative
to build a positive perspective of the nation to explore which is acclaimed by
the international communities. Every country is hospitable, but of course at
some cost. The people of Bangladesh adorn hospitality as they adorn their
religion. They fall in irony because of nature, but come out successfully showing
how the resilience is to be taught. Now this has been established when in the
Lonely Planet’s index of most value destination of the world, Bangladesh toped
the rank in 2008 and 2011.
Multi-channel Awareness
It is a challenge for a country
like Bangladesh which has the little financial capacity to carry out cross-road
promotional campaign all around the world. Therefore the country is taking the
strategy to reach the niche segments of the markets, which seems potential for
the country. Currently emphasis rolled on
unpaid promotion in the digital and social media. Paid promotional campaign in small scale has
just kicked off in some portals specially booking and travel networking sites
like Trip Advisor, E-Bookers.com, Sina.com, wayn.com and PR initiative in the
Travel Daily News International. Even though the TV Campaign is quite ambisous
for a country like Bangladesh, but small scale focused campaign will start very
quickly to aware the international community about Bangladesh.
Using Social Media Platform
Social media is now the strongest
tool for marketing and promotional activities irrespective of types of products
and services. The strategies which will guide the initial phases of the
campaign are sharing experiences and story-telling about the country; how they
feel and what they have found here. This has just started few days ago and we
recorded a very good feedback from the travelers as well as suggestions and
choices.
Event Marketing
Bangladesh is an upcoming
destination for MICE. But we demonstrated our strength organizing one of the
greatest shows on the earth ICC World Cup Cricket-2011 and its inaugural
ceremony. Through this events we found a segments who are mostly cricket-lovers
showing big interest to visit Bangladesh. There are many international events
held in Bangladesh where tourism specially business tourist arrivals increase
significantly.
ICC World T20- a big tournament
will be organized in 2014 in Bangladesh. This is going to be the largest
participation of the cricket playing nations of the world- 24 national teams
including women teams of the Test Playing nations participate in this big
tournament. The objective of holding such big sport tournament is to give a
wakeup call to the international
community who are mostly unaware of the strength of the country. A large number
of foreign spectators have had their bookings already to witness the tournament
and the country.
DMO in
the private sector
Bangladesh Tourism Board
encourages private sector initiatives for destination marketing and management.
As many as more than hundred of international trade and tourism events take
place in Bangladesh. Some of the events are pretty big where more than five
thousands business visitors come at a time. The
trend is very optimistic as the economy booms up and the new business opportunities
are created, which resulted in a good number of skilled destination management
companies started operation and deliver standard level of services. Most of the
trade events and exhibitions are of private sector leadership in the
competitive way, which is stimulating the growth of the supply sides.
International collaboration and
networking both public and private sector is very significant in promoting a
destination which on the other hand provides the recognition of the host
authority for a destination. This helps to build confidence and better feedback
from the audience and planners. We gradually improve the condition through the
increased involvement in the regional and global forum. Bangladesh has become
the member of PATA as the destination category, elected the Vice-Chair for
Regional Commission for South Asia and the increased collaboration with UNWTO
would certainly help to open up the opportunities for the destination marketers
of the world.
