Among the seven member countries of the South Asian organization, tourism is the most developed in Maldives. This country has been able to develop world-class tourism. But the tourist-carrying capacity of this tiny country is limited. With vision and proper planning, Maldives has been able to keep tourism at a sustainable level, and to attract high-spending tourists to its blue water beaches. Due to tourism, the per capita income in Maldives is the highest among the Saarc countries. The economy of this country now solely depends on tourism. In the near past its economy depended on fishing only.

The other two Saarc members, which could be most benefited from tourism are Sri Lanka and Nepal. But internal disturbances have greatly hampered the development of tourism in these two countries. A few years back, tourists in Nepal hit almost half a million. The arrivals reduced to less than two hundred thousand in the year of 2003.

The tourism industry in Nepal has been now showing the sign of recovery. This country can boast of having the tallest peak in the world, the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest), along with seven others among the eleven tallest peaks in the Himalayan mountain range.

The people, government, bureaucracy, national tourism organization and private tour operators of this country -- all of them have pro-tourism orientation. Even the Maoist guerrillas during their ten years of insurgency have never touched a tourist. The economy of Nepal almost solely depends on earnings from tourism.

The white sand beaches of Sri Lanka have all the charms to attract a lot of international tourists. Now these beaches look almost deserted. Before the civil war, tourism in Sri Lanka was the most advanced in South Asia. Unfortunately, there is no sign that the internal disturbance in this country will cease in the foreseeable future.

During the last two years, India's performance in tourism has been amazing. The well-orchestrated "Incredible India" campaign has increased tourist arrivals in that country by more than one million in two years. In recent years, the number of tourists visiting India was about four million. This number may seem not big enough for a vast country like India, but when we consider the average stay of a tourist in India is 21 days, the number speaks well.

All the credit for the success of the "Incredible India" campaign goes to the policy-makers of the Indian government as well as to the bureaucrats and employees of the Ministry of Tourism of that country, who work with missionary zeal for the development of tourism in their motherland.

It seems to me that the highways in Bangladesh are better than the highways in India in terms of quality. The highway from Delhi to the Taj Mahal -- the unique tourist attraction in India -- could be better. In 2004, I visited a part of Buddhist circuit in India. I went from Bod-Gaya to Nalanda Mahavihara via Rajgir by a private car, and started the journey from my hotel at 4 am. The distance between Bod-Gaya to Rajgir is 78 kms, and it took me three and half hours to cover that distance, so bad was the condition of the road used by so many tourists.

That said, the vast Indian railway service is really appreciable. One can travel through India's tourist attractions by train comfortably, especially when one travels upper class.

Bhutan, another Saarc country, is a tiny Himalayan kingdom. Bhutanese government follows the policy of limited tourism to keep the negative impacts of tourism on the environment and society of the country under control. Bhutan's concern about its nature and environment is understandable. At present, five thousand tourists, sans visitors from Saarc countries, are allowed to visit annually this country. They are high-spending tourists, as a non-Saarc would-be visitor to that country needs to make a deposit of $200 with the Bhutanese government, for each intended day's stay in that country to get the visa.

The mountainous roads in Bhutan are narrow and serpentine, with blood-curdling very steep edges. Still one feels safe while traveling on those roads due to their quality and the caution of the drivers. Same is the case in Nepal. Driving in North India, except in West Bengal, is more or less OK. Driving in South India maintains standard.

But the driving in Bangladesh is so bad that it works as one of the main deterrents to the development of tourism in this country. Our high hills with lush green forest in Chittagong Hill Tracts are more attractive than the almost rugged mountains in Bhutan. But a foreign tourist, who has once traveled on the road to Rangamati, will not recommend his friends and relatives to visit Rangamati due to the extremely reckless driving on that road.

In spite of the continuous efforts on the part of the international news media to portray Pakistan as a hot-bed of religious orthodoxy, the tourism in Pakistan has been gaining momentum for the last few years. This has been happening for the deep interest taken by the highest policy-makers of Pakistan for the development of tourism in the country.

The total tourist arrivals in Pakistan in 2005, which was about 650,000, was more than double of the total tourist arrivals in Bangladesh in the same year. The profound understanding by the highest body of that country of the importance of tourism in national economy will help the tourism industry of Pakistan to leap forward in the coming years.

The tourism industry in India or Pakistan is lagging far behind the tourism industry of not so far a neighbour, Malaysia, where tourist arrivals were about 15 million in 2005. Still these two countries, more precisely India, are moving forward in the field of tourism in big strides.

The total tourist arrivals in Bangladesh was a little bit more than 244,000 in 2003, which marked a positive change of 17.98 percent on the performance of the previous year. The Bangladesh economy is showing the sign of better progress in recent years. The export growth rate of the country was at 19 per cent last year.

Due to the robust growth in export trade, increasing number of foreign businessmen are now visiting Bangladesh. Counting the number of the visiting businessmen and Bangladeshi expatriates who come to visit their relatives in the tourist arrivals statistics, we feel satisfied with the growth of our tourism industry, though this should not be the case.

Tourism industry in Bangladesh lacks proper planning and motivation. A simple example may be cited here. The Paharpur Buddhist Monastery, a world heritage site designated by Unesco, attracts most of the leisure tourists, who come to visit Bangladesh. There is no toilet facility for the tourists at this site.

Without much research, Bangladesh government is now planning to develop exclusive beaches for foreign tourists, which is a step toward a wrong direction. Exclusive beach resorts means "sand, sun, and sex." There should be nightclubs, bars, message parlours, prostitution, and casinos in that beach resort if we want to contest with popular beach resorts in other countries. Do we want that?

I talked to many tourists who visited Bangladesh and who traveled through many other countries in the world; they liked Bangladesh more than many countries they visited. The sunset in Bangladesh is the most beautiful sunset in the world -- this is the candid opinion of many tourists. In Bangladesh we have got the largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, in the world; the ruins of the single largest Buddhist monastery in the world, the Paharpur Mahavihara; the longest sea beach, Cox's Bazar; and the country itself is the largest delta in the world.

The people of Bangladesh are remarkably hospitable to tourists. We have the potential to develop tourism in our country; what we urgently need is the motivation on the part of our national policy makers and those who work in the ministry of tourism and in the national tourism organization, as well as in the people working in the private sector of this industry.

In coming years, the international tourists in their 50s and 60s will pour into the Saarc countries, because they have already visited almost all the other regions and countries of the world. It will depend on us whether we will be able to tap this opportunity to boost tourism in our countries, and thus help our national economies through tourism.

The main hindrance to the pouring in of the international tourists in three member countries of Saarc, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, will be the policy of reciprocity followed by the governments of these countries in issuing the visa to the tourists.

For different reasons, the governments of the developed countries, which generate almost all the international tourists (their number was more than 750 million in the year of 2005), follow very strict policy to issue visa to the citizens of Saarc countries.

In the name of the policy of reciprocity, the governments of the aforementioned countries follow the same strict policy to issue visa to the citizens of the developed countries. When these three governments do not follow the policy of reciprocity in other fields, why should they follow this policy in case of issuance of visa?

For example, Bangladesh has been given the preference of duty-free access for its many products in the markets of developed countries. To follow the policy of reciprocity, do we allow the duty-free access of their goods in our country?

To ease intra-regional international tourist movement, the Saarc countries need to get rid of the cumbersome border formalities for the non-Saarc tourists. A group of tourists comprising 12-15 persons needs more than three hours to get immigration and custom clearance at Haridaspur, a transit point on the Indian side of the border. The group needs about two hours for the same purpose at Benapole, a transit point on the Bangladesh side of the border, opposite to Haridaspur. This kind of unusual delay at border crossing discourages tourists to take Saarc regional tour.

For the development of tourism in Saarc countries, this industry does not need lip service from the governments, but needs pragmatic initiatives on their part.

Faruque Hasan is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.