Blekinge Institute of Technology School of Management Master Thesis M.Sc. in Business Administration The Use of Promotional Activities in the Tourism Industry: The Case of Bangladesh By Md. Jakir Hossain Dr. Klaus Solberg Søilen ID # 670504-P777 Academic Supervisor E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Date: 07 June, 2006 Abstract This thesis is an attempt to investigate how the use of promotional activities can help to develop the tourism industry by giving a special concentration to the case of Bangladesh. The investigation was conducted from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. The contribution of the same industry to the world economy is considerable. Many countries are now dependent on this sector for foreign currency earnings. Every destination country is trying to achieve more gain by developing this industry. The expansion of the tourism through out the world has increased competition among the tourist destinations, trying to attract more tourists by adopting appropriate marketing techniques and strategies. Failure of doing so by a particular marketer will lead to a less competitive in the world tourism market. As an important element of marketing mix, promotion plays the vital role in marketing any product and service. Tourism product/service is of no exception. Because of the tourists want to know in advance about the attractions and the facilities of a particular destination. The tourist also wants to know other related information of his/her visit to make the same safe, secured and enjoyable. As a result, dissemination of information on travel and tourism-related products and services are highly important. By using the different tools of promotion, marketers attempt to serve this purpose and try to influence the potential tourists’ attitudes in favour of the sponsor’s destination and grow interest to visit the same. Though promotion plays an important role in tourism marketing, the tourism marketing in Bangladesh is far behind from reaching this goal, which leads to incapacity to attract a significant number of tourists. This is mainly due to inadequate and ineffective promotional measures of the tourism sector of Bangladesh. Both the private and public tour operators of Bangladesh have the resource constraints and can not afford the sufficient budget for the promotional purpose. As a result, they can not conduct the promotional measures for the said industry by using international media which is essential for attracting the foreign tourists. They only depend on the local media which is not sufficiently fruitful for an industry where the location of the target market is diversified and they are located at the different parts of the world. In addition to that the low quality of promotional materials, improper distribution of the materials, the perceived negative image by the potential tourists due to a wrongful and negative reporting from international media adversely affect the tourism of Bangladesh. The research also revealed that the country has a positive trend in arrivals and earnings and it can be increased to a singnificant level if the country can undertake appropriate promotion measures by increasing the allocation for this purpose. The country also needs to employ creative people for this purpose and the quality of the II promotional materials also needs to be developed. The promotional activities should also be directed in correcting the present image towards Bangladesh as tourists’ destination. By ensuring these measures Bangladesh tourism industry can emerge as one of the major contributors to the national economy of Bangladesh. III Executive Summary Title : The Use of Promotional Activities in the Tourism Industry: The Case of Bangladesh. Author : Md. Jakir Hossain Advisors : Dr. Klaus Solberg Søilen Course : M. Sc. Thesis in Business Administration Department : School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden Date : 07 June, 2006 Purpose : The main purpose of this study is to analyze the current position and future prospects of Bangladesh tourism industry and to highlight how the promotion activities can play the role in the tourism development of a country like Bangladesh. Considering this view, the promotional activities undertaken by the tour operators of Bangladesh have been analyzed to identify the problems and limitation of the said activities. In addition to that it was attempted to find out the types of promotional activities most suited for tourism in Bangladesh. Finally, based on the findings, some suggestions have been put forwarded to the policy makers of the concerned authority. Method : The present research is a combination of both theoretical and empirical. For the theorical foundation and analysis, the existing literatures were investigated. The existing literature includes published journals, periodicals, newspapers, related magazines, Internet etc. Most of the statistical data have been collected from the related web pages. To collect the primary data from the selected tour operators, a survey questionnaire has been used. To analyse the collected data, different quantitative and qualitative measures have been taken. Findings : It is revealed that promotion plays a pivotal role in developing the tourism industry in any specific destination as the tourists wants to know in advance about the tourism attractions and facilities at the destination. Promotional measures are intended to provide the information as required by the potential tourists and acts as vital IV force to draw the attention and grow interest to select that particular destination to visit. Though Bangladesh has some beautiful attractions to its destination, it fails to attract the significant number of tourists partly because of insufficient promotional activities. As the country lacks sufficient funds for this purpose, it can not take the necessary promotional activities for this industry. To promote the tourism of any destination one needs to launch the promotional activities through e.g. international media like cable TV, world renowned newspapers, magazines and other world coverage media. Due to resource constraint, the country can not use the international media. As a result, the country has to depend on the local media to advertise the same which is not effective measure for attracting foreign tourists. The country also suffers from the image problem and the international media most often highlight the country in a negative way which causes potential visitors not to select Bangladesh as a tourist destination. The real situation is different. To overcome this negative image, international media coverage in a positive way can play an important role. As it is now the country does not have enough funds, it can not launch effective promotional steps in correcting the same. The government initiative in this regard is also insufficient. All these cause the country to attracting insignificant number of tourists and resultant effect is the failure of earning sufficient amount of foreign currency. Therefore, the initiatives concern authority of the government along with the tourism authority is a must for correcting the image of the country to the potential tourists in order to draw their attention and grow interest to choose Bangladesh as a tourist destination and visit the same. Bangladesh also lacks the infrastructural facilities to the standard of international levels to its destination places. This important issue needs to be considered immediately and in the priority basis before going to promoting the same sector in order to develop the industry. Again it requires more investment for the same. The participation of the private sector in the same industry is not also at expected levels and even most of the private tour operators are new in this area. They also have the resource constraint to play the active role for the development of the industry. The effective steps to encourage the private sector investment from the local as well as from the foreign investors can contribute to develop the industry. V The country also lacks the coordinated efforts among different ministries related to tourism like Ministries of Home, Civil Aviation, Communication, Health, Planning etc. which need to overcome for the overall development of the industry. The coordinated efforts can make the visit more safe, comfortable and enjoyable and can fulfill the needs of the tourists. The promotional activities of Bangladesh tourism are inadequate to promote the industry in the world competitive market as it has to depend on only local media and some printed materials like brochures, folders, souvenirs, tourists maps, tourist guides etc. to promote the same. At the same time the quality of those printed material is not up to the mark. In addition, the use of information technology is very negligible. The web page used by BPC needs to well-designed and updated. The ultimate effects of all these insufficient promotional steps lead to no significant growth of tourism industry in Bangladesh though the industry and its market have grown phenomenally in worldwide. It is expected that Bangladesh can enjoy a positive growth of this industry if proper steps can be taken at least regarding the promotional aspects. Keywords : Promotion, Promotion Tools, Tourism Industry, Bangladesh Tourism, Tourism Development, Tourism Products/Services VI Acknowledgement I am indebted to a number of individuals without whose assistance this research could not have been completed in time. My first gratitude goes to Anders Nilsson,