Eco-entrepreneurship in Jessore
Bangladesh is Asia's best-kept secret, and I can't wait for the rest
of the world to discover it.
by Kristin Boekhoff
As I bound my breasts and put on men's clothes, I remember thinking
how crazy I was. In two years, I went from being an executive in the
'c-suite' of a large real estate finance company in New York to
disguising myself as a Bangladeshi man so that I could go look for
land in the rural areas of southern Bangladesh. So what made me give
up a high-paying job at the top of the corporate ladder, donate
everything I owned to charity, and move to a developing country that
few people can locate on a map? In a word: passion.
I was making money in New York, but I wasn't making a difference. I
had reached the top of my chosen career field by age thirty and was
bored. I wanted to change my life so I could do something I loved, and
make more of an impact on the world. But it was a lecture that I
attended at the Cornell Club that really sounded the clarion call for
me. Stuart Hart, a professor at the Cornell Johnson Business School,
gave a lecture about alternative energy in developing countries; he
threw out a statistic that I could not believe when I heard it: he
said that of the 6 billion people in the world, 4 billion live in
poverty. It shocked me to the core of my being. I considered myself a
well-educated and well-travelled individual, and for me to not have
known how most of the people in the world live made me question
everything that I knew.
That talk set in motion a series of events that led me to apply for a
Fulbright Fellowship to Bangladesh where I did a year of service and
spent some time examining my priorities. When my Fulbright ended, I
realized that I could no longer return to my old life and that the
time had finally come to spread my wings and jump. I had the idea to
create sustainable boutique resorts before I left New York (it
combined my interests in environmentalism, real estate, design, and
travel), but I certainly never thought that I would start in
Bangladesh! After living in the country for a year, however, I
realized that there was a demand, among the foreigners and
Bangladeshis already living in Dhaka, for the kind of high-end
socially and environmentally responsible product that I wanted to
create.
While working on my Fulbright project I connected with German
architect Anna Heringer who built an award-winning school from mud in
the northern part of Bangladesh. I was inspired by her work and
decided to create a resort out of mud and bamboo that showcased
Bangladeshi culture and heritage.
I strategically chose the location for my resort and then started
looking for a site. I flew to Jessore, put on a sari, and hired a
rickshaw to take me around the countryside. Village tea stalls were
the best source of information about the local area. Normally the
exclusive domain of men, I was invited to sit, take tea, and share
information about my country, my family, and what I was doing in
Bangladesh. After the local leader had determined that my quest was
worthwhile, he would take me around and show me several pieces of land
that might be available. While the search was fun and the scenery
breathtaking, I soon realized that I was getting the bideshir dam
(foreigner's price quote) for the land.
On my fourth trip down to Jessore, I hooked up with a local named
Koli. I liked Koli from the start – he was friendly, enthusiastic, and
I instantly felt that I could trust him. Koli wasn't a broker, but he
knew the area and offered to show me some land. I had originally
planned to fly back to Dhaka that same evening, but Koli said that he
could show me some more land the next day, so I decided to stay. Koli
invited me to spend the night with him and his family. Normally I
would have turned down an invitation to come home with a strange man,
but Koli explained that he lived with his wife and two children and
his brothers and their families, so I took a chance and followed him.
That night I got to experience the amazing hospitality of the
Bangladeshi people. With just an hour's notice, his family had
prepared a huge feast for me of traditional Bangladeshi food. I didn't
have any clothes for the next day, so they bought me a shalwar kameez
and a nightgown. When I left the next morning they gave me fruit and
presents and made me promise to come back soon.
Over the next year and a half Koli and I worked together to find the
perfect land for the resort. We lost a few pieces along the way -- one
for title issues and two because they found out it was a foreigner
that was buying the land. Consequently, when we found our current
site, I was not initially allowed to go down and see it. I told Koli
that I couldn't buy land without seeing it first, so we came up with
the idea of disguising me as a Bangladeshi man and driving by on
Koli's motorcycle (a woman on the back of a motorcycle, even in a
burka, would draw too much attention). So I bound my breasts, put on
men's clothes (which also hid my white arms and legs!), donned a
motorcycle helmet, and drove to the project site. The disguise worked
and I was able to check out the property.
Koli spent the next six months talking to the villagers, forming
relationships, and negotiating a price. He explained that we are
trying to develop a socially responsible resort that will improve the
lives of the people in the local community by bringing new businesses
and jobs to the area. He told them that we wanted to revive some of
the arts and crafts of Bangladesh that are being lost and that we
would work with the villagers to create products that could be used in
the resort and maybe even sold abroad. In the end, the villagers got
together and agreed to sell. Today many of them (and their children)
are Panigram employees.
While Koli worked to build a support network in the village community,
I used my connections to assemble a team of some of the top hoteliers,
designers and engineers in the world. I was fortunate to find an
inspirational group of creative thinkers who shared my vision of
creating a luxury boutique spa resort that protects the natural and
cultural heritage of Bangladesh, provides authentic and distinctive
travel experiences to discerning travellers, promotes sustainable
development, and improves the quality of life in the host community.
At the same time I managed to attract a group of like-minded
Bangladeshi investors who were able to see the potential of
environmental tourism in Bangladesh, even though at the time only a
couple of low-end eco lodges existed in the country.
When I first started talking about my project, most people didn't get
it. They wondered why I wasn't developing in Cox's Bazar and couldn't
believe that I wasn't going to put televisions in my rooms. The idea
of creating a quiet place by a river where families could go, relax,
reflect, and enjoy each other's company was as foreign as I was. At
the time the posters advertising tourism in Bangladesh were covered
with photos of the Jamuna
Bridge. Everyone was talking about 'the world's longest sea beach'
without realizing that the while the beach in Cox's Bazar may be the
biggest, it is not the prettiest, nor is it attractive to foreigners
who would prefer to spend their holidays taking photographs instead of
being photographed themselves. I went to meetings with government
officials and potential investors and tried to explain that the real
draw of Bangladesh to a foreigner isn't its beach or its few small
archaeological sites, but the fact that it is the world's largest
river delta and that the people who have built homes and families on
the banks of these byzantine waterways are some of the most naturally
hospitable people in the world. In Bangladesh a foreigner can still
have an authentic travel experience because the people here are
authentic. They still live in mud homes, use water buffalo to plant
their fields, and grind spices by hand.
Fortunately, in the past five years more Bangladeshis have realized
the potential of the natural beauty of their country and the value of
relaxation. As the traffic in Dhaka has gotten worse, the demand for
yoga classes, spas, and nature hikes have increased. Several new
eco-resorts are under development and many non-profit organizations
have been created to protect the country's natural heritage.
The pastoral countryside will ultimately be a draw for foreign
visitors, but Bangladesh's first tourist market will be the people who
already live here, primarily the burgeoning middle-class. These
educated people of increasing means are also seeking safe, clean
places to take their families. While trips abroad are attractive to
them, higher costs, difficulties in obtaining visas, and a desire to
give their city-born children a 'gramer bari' ('village home')
experience will make local destinations attractive to them.
Though my target market is affluent travellers, they too will
primarily be Bangladeshis and the expatriates who live in Dhaka. I
have seen grown Bangladeshi men in business suits strip down to lungis
and jump in my river. There is something about returning to the
countryside that restores the joy of youth and the excitement of
discovery. Complex problems and technological distractions fade away
and are replaced by the simple pleasures of evening boat rides, great
conversation, and the amazement of spotting a rare butterfly. While
the city of Dhaka is harsh and chaotic with the sights, sounds, and
smells of a developing industrial city, Bangladesh's countryside is a
tropical haven that even many of the native city-dwellers have
forgotten about.
It is here, in the lush paddy fields of rural Bangladesh, that tourism
which is most in harmony with Bangladeshi culture and values will
develop. While some entrepreneurs aspire to turn Bangladesh into the
next Bangkok with flashy discotheques, all-night bars, and casinos,
there are others who see the power in the quiet beauty of the gram.
Bangladeshi tourism is in a nascent stage of development; Bangladesh
can become another hub for people who are addicted to gambling, sex,
and alcohol, or it can become a new model for sustainable tourism.
Bangladeshis can take the things that are initially seen as threats
(poverty, a large population, climate change) and turn them into
opportunities (a large workforce eager to learn, a resort that creates
its own power) and solutions that inspire the rest of the world.(New
Age BD)
One of the most amazing things that I have learned in the five years
that I have been here in Bangladesh is that most Bangladeshis believe
that anything produced in Bangladesh is of poor quality and foreign
products are better. With Panigram, I would like to reverse that
message. Though I have an amazing team of foreign advisors and I am a
foreigner myself, the resort is being designed, built, run, and
financed by Bangladeshis. Most of the items in the resort – from the
tiles to the light fixtures – will be designed and made in Bangladesh.
I want my guests to have an authentic Bangladeshi experience from the
amazing hospitality of my staff, to the savoury Bangladeshi food, to
the Tagore music we will play in the evenings. Bangladesh is Asia's
best-kept secret, and I can't wait for the rest of the world to
discover it.
------------------------
The writer is a Fullbright Scholar and the founder and Managing
Director of Panigram Resort, a socially and environmentally
responsible boutique spa resort in Jessore. Panigram is currently
under development and anticipates opening in December 2012.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/special/45758.html
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[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
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