Fairs and Festivals as Tourist Attractions: Bangladesh Perspectives

Fairs and festivals are significant parts of culture of every society. Fairs and festivals have drawn attention of operators, destination marketers, tourists and other stakeholders. There is a complex relationship between fairs and festivals with tourism, which is not focused in regular tourism activities in Bangladesh. But based on these fairs and festivals based tourism, Bangladesh can expose its culture among the tourists of the world. The paper attempts to highlight the outcomes of this relationship between fairs and festivals related tourism and the country development as well as identify the problems and likelihood of expansion of these types of tourism in Bangladesh. The outcome of the findings from this research will help stakeholders to get a clear idea on the difference between fairs and festivals and their relation with tourism. 80 percent of the respondents agreed that there is a relationship of fairs and festivals with tourism and 100 percent respondents thought that fairs and festivals have impacts on the economy and the society. As such, it is imperative that fairs and festivals can be considered as important tourist attractions of Bangladesh tourism industry.