Tourism As A Vehicle Of Reconciliation In ‘Post-Conflict’ Bangladesh: Indigenous Community Perspectives On Tourism Development In The Chittagong Hill Tracts

This study explored the views of Bangladesh’s indigenous Jumma people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) towards current tourism developments in a ‘post-conflict’ environment. Primarily, it has identified a range of positive outcomes and the key challenges encountered since the cessation of hostilities in 1997 that resulted in the creation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord (1997). This study is one of the first of its kind in offering indigenous narratives on tourism development discourse in Bangladesh. Based on in-depth interviews with 27 indigenous business owners and employees in the CHT tourism sector, this paper applies the community capitals framework (CCF) to explore how the growth of tourism has led to community development outcomes. The findings reveal that many human andsocial capital benefits have been realised through tourism development, including greater economic stability, an improvement in living standards, and the perception amongst respondents of brighter prospects for their families. However, although several respondents reported that tourism had in part performed as a vehicle of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Bangladeshis, a number of political and cultural challenges still remained. These included a perceived lack of government support towards further tourism development and continued feelings of mistrust between some indigenous hosts and non-indigenous domestic tourists. Thus, this paper not only provides indigenous insights into the nature of tourism development, but also offers recommendations from their perspective so that the benefits of tourism may become further pronounced in the future.