Mohammad Osman Farhan Al Harun

‘We could not find much scopes to read the names of the hotels and restaurants in Dhaka city after arriving here. It is a trouble for us since the names are not written in English’- this was the comment of a Nepalese teacher visiting Dhaka for the first time for attending an international event in January 2018. Following this experience, they were briefed about our government policy regarding the use of ‘Bengali’ everywhere in the country. But consider the situation if you face this type of awkward condition while visiting abroad where nothing can be perceived due to not using English as means of instruction.

As a matter of fact, for creating a tourist-friendly environment, national tourism authority of Bangladesh can take an initiative to use bi-lingual terms at major areas of the cities where both English and Bangla can be applied side by side.

Let’s now talk about transportation facilities available for foreign tourists in our motherland. Two foreigners attending the international event in Dhaka were looking for transports to reach their hotel from Basundhara area. They had four options- rickshaw, cng, Uber or taxi service. If we talk about the language proficiency of Bangladeshi drivers, can they really able to communicate properly with foreign passengers? Since Uber and application-based transports are getting popular in Bangladesh, time has come to train its drivers in English to guide our foreign tourists in the capital. In a tourist-friendly nation, an educated driver is a kind of asset for playing the role of a good tourist guide for the international guests. In other words, drivers of standard taxi and tourist transports should be well-trained to assist our foreign guests. It can be done by the ministry of tourism with special project by the assistance of Bangladesh English Language Teachers’ Association (BELTA) or a group of specialized teachers as a pilot project. Fresh graduates in English disciplines from different universities can be easily tagged in this project for solving this problem in an effective way.

Bangladesh is well-known for warm hospitality to the foreigners, but communication barrier is still a challenge in the tourism sector. To reduce the unemployment problem of the country which is increasing day by day, it is now high time to concentrate on our tourism sector where smart tourist guides can be created district-wise with special emphasis on English language. Since Bangladesh has less exposure as a tourist destination, we should now think seriously about tourism sector for boosting our foreign investment as well in this competitive global world. Let’s start thinking on this issue from today.