In the last 11 years, the number of hotels and restaurants in the country has increased by about 1 lakh 61 thousand. In 2009-10 the number was 2 lakh 75 thousand. Last year the number of hotels and restaurants increased to 4 lakh 36 thousand.

Meanwhile, along with hotels and restaurants, the number of people working there has also increased. In 2009-10, 94,000 people were working in hotels and restaurants. Last year it increased to 20 lakh 72 thousand. Among them, the number of male workers is 19 lakh 70 thousand 970. The remaining 1 lakh 737 are women. In 2019-20, the number of women workers in this sector was 47 thousand. Accordingly, the number of women workers has more than doubled in 11 years.

Such information has emerged in Hotel and Restaurant Survey-2021 conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The survey was done to know the contribution of this sector in GDP. At the same time, the survey has collected several information including total sales of goods and services, total income, cost of raw materials, operating expenses, employment expenses according to type. BBS released the final results of this survey on Monday.

Relatively less capital is the main reason why hotel-restaurant business in Bangladesh is profitable and popular. That is why new hotels and restaurants are constantly being built not only in Dhaka, but also in districts and upazilas. That is why the contribution of this sector to the country’s economy is increasing.

According to the BBS survey, value addition to gross domestic product or GDP has increased eight times in the last decade. A decade ago in the fiscal year 2009-10, the value added from hotels and restaurants was only 11 thousand 986 crores. And in the last fiscal year 2019-20, the value addition from the hotel-restaurant sector was 87 thousand 926 crores.

From March 27 to April 10 this year, BBS conducted the survey on 6 thousand 734 hotels and restaurants of the country based on random selection. 151 enumerators and 80 supervisors of BBS collected data from field level. The survey was conducted using data from the 2013 Economic Census and the 2019 Business Directory.