Abstract:

This paper examines the potential effects of tourism on the economic growth of Bangladesh. It is a review paper of the literature based on secondary data. This paper discusses various aspects regarding the effects of the tourism industry on the overall economic progress of the country, including real GDP growth, infrastructural development and employment generation. Since the tourism industry has a small share of revenue to the GDP of Bangladesh’s economy (at this moment), its contribution to economic growth is limited till now. This paper finds that the current size of the Bangladesh tourism economy is BDT 500 million. Besides, Bangladesh earned USD 1157 million from tourism sector during 2009-2018 period. Each year, 0.55 million tourists (on average) visit Bangladesh in the same period. Moreover, it creates 2.23 million jobs each year. The travel and tourism sector contributes 4.4% of the GDP in each year. Bangladesh’s government ensures a lot of facilities for tourists.This article points out a number of issues that need to be considered in the tourism industry to play a more significant role regarding economic growth, and the overall socio-economic development of Bangladesh.

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