Our financial habits and spending patterns are changing over time. Nowadays, Bangladeshi youth increasingly prioritise travelling as an essential life experience within personal affordability rather than a luxury.

Mainstream narratives in pop culture and social media often represent travelling in an individualistic manner, making it all about finding yourself, creating memories, and escapism.

The emotionally charged self-discovery angle becomes a selling point in the first place. However, the influence of such linear notions in shaping tourism industries, how they operate, and what impressions they create among tourists is not always positive.

It is quite the trend in the Bangladeshi tourism industry to curate experiences that are heavily traveller-centric at the expense of local communities and their needs.

Political power and capital are often used to benefit commercial tourism-based businesses through land grabbing, displacing native populations, and harming longstanding livelihoods, cultures, and ecosystems.

This destruction is then marketed as a necessity under terms like ‘development,’ while creating an impression that the tourists are somehow playing the role of a saviour by economically contributing to ‘underdeveloped’ places and populations — which could not be further from the truth.

When policies and governance intentionally fail to safeguard the lifeblood of a place for profitable ‘luxurious vacations,’ it is essential to take a long, hard look at the selfish notion that travelling is only about the travellers and what they gain from it.

Travelling is as much about the cultures and practices we encounter, and how these encounters affect the respective communities, not just the people visiting. Therefore, especially as young travellers, we must be responsible and thoughtful about how we interact with new surroundings and people so that instead of exoticising our differences, we can learn to bond over them.

Research, respect, and responsibility

Doing a bit of research about a new place always helps before travelling. This research does not only have to be about finding the cheapest accommodation or popular spots, but also about the history, beliefs, mannerisms, or cultural practices of the communities one may come across. Staying informed ensures genuine conversations and overall respectful engagement with the locals. Most importantly, it helps travellers avoid funding exploitative ventures that harm the natives, which is extremely necessary in the context of Bangladesh.

For instance, if the resort you are planning to stay at was built on dispossessed ancestral lands and does not give back to the displaced communities in any way, no panoramic view from a private balcony is worth funding such businesses with your hard-earned money. As an alternative, there is an ongoing rise in community tourism that is relatively more grounded in local communities, as it offers a more authentic experience of their lifestyle and culture.

Since there are now many independent community tourism-based businesses with a social media presence, part of the research prior to travelling should also examine whether their offerings require excessive adjustments from the host community just to ensure a certain level of comfort for the travellers.

One should be mindful about whether such businesses are truly community-led, where decision-making is in the hands of local residents themselves. Because if it is not they who get to exercise agency over how tourism operates in their space, they do not become the primary beneficiaries. It is therefore always best to choose locally owned businesses for accommodation, transportation, food, and other services according to one’s budget.

Seeing travel through local eyes

Travelling introduces us to radically different cultures, lifestyles, and habits that may seem strange at first. But experiencing a place and its people to the fullest requires a deeper understanding of practices that hold meaning and shape the worldviews of entire communities. There is no better way to familiarise oneself with such ethos than by striking up a conversation with the locals wherever you go.

While doing so, however, we should be conscious of our approach because often we voice ethnocentric biases and prevalent stereotypes without understanding the effect it might have on someone to whom we are essentially outsiders.

This is why it is so important to learn about the history and, preferably, the political climate of a place prior to travelling. The sensibility one develops towards diverse cultures and communities based on such knowledge is essential for safeguarding everyone involved.

Up until the age when we finally get to travel by ourselves or with friends, travelling is often represented as a way to gain something for oneself — a new language, the taste of new cuisine, or some idealised spiritual experience leading to self-discovery.

In contrast, rarely are thoughts given to the cultural, economic, and environmental footprint we as travellers leave behind, which continue to impact the structures governing the lives of communities well after our ‘life-changing’ trips.

The major problems surrounding the tourism industry in Bangladesh are undeniably caused by political power play, infrastructure, and policies that benefit those with capital.

But this admission is not an excuse that exempts us from being mindful and responsible towards the communities and cultures we experience as travellers. Rather, such structural problems further exemplify the need for a perspective change and personal accountability as a form of resistance.

Swapping out comfortable luxury for more ethical alternatives may sound performative at first, but travelling and tourism are highly political, and we need to start understanding why.