Broadening Tourism and Cultivating Sustainability: Exploring Opportunities in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper explores how tourism can be understood as an opportunity to develop sustainable enterprise, providing business opportunities while also advancing social and environmental goals. While every country has multiple challenges to manage in the future, we argue that comprehensive planning for sustainable tourism can integrate several policy goals and realize compounded benefits as governments declare their commitment to ‘build back better.’ The need to plan for sustainable development is especially salient in the wake of the pandemic, and with climate change looming. Using Bangladesh as our case study, we consider how integrated and cross-sectoral planning for tourism could help provide more opportunities for visitors to appreciate the rich resources located there, such as the cultural heritage, and the rare species and mangroves of the Sundarbans, while simultaneously advancing policy goals for social welfare and the environment. We outline opportunities on the horizon, and by drawing on demographic data about the Bangladeshi diaspora, it becomes clear that heritage tourism has potential and merits further study. Finally, targeting the expansion of sustainable livelihoods can strengthen local economies and simultaneously help Bangladesh advance its efforts toward related national goals, including the UN’s SDGs (United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals).