Prospects of Parasailing Activities in Bangladesh: A Study on the Opportunities and Challenges

Parasailing is considered as the modern and popular part of seaside recreational activities. Bangladesh has recently added ‘Parasailing’ to her service list in Cox’s Bazaar and Himchori in 2010. The purpose of this study is to investigate the tourists’ perceptions towards parasailing activities and to analyze the opportunities and challenges of parasailing in Bangladesh. The study is based on primary as well as secondary data, and has applied descriptive research method on the basis of data collected through a questionnaire consisting of 33 questions from 52 respondents. The reason behind choosing this topic is that ‘parasailing’ has a great opportunity in the future tourism business in Bangladesh. Moreover, the aim of this study is to spread this activity in different areas of Bangladesh, like Saint Martin’s island and Patenga sea beaches, so that tourists can enjoy the taste of same. Thinking from a commercial perspective it has a great potential of increasing recreational facilities, earning a huge amount of income, and employing many people from the local communities to bring a change in their lives.

Parasailing is a part of sports and adventure tourism. It can be called adventure sports. Like other tourism sectors, sports tourism is growing day by day. Sports are considered as the best sources of passing leisure time. Active tourists keep the sports tourism in their first priority. People think it is the best way of relaxation and entertainment. "It is considered to be one of the most enjoyable water activities in the world. The experience of being up in the air in the middle of the ocean can truly be a feat worth trying (Deakin, 2010)". Now many people travel for experiencing thrilling activities or sports. It increases their selfpride. Tourists who have a strong emotion always want to experience something exceptional, many of them choose parasailing. Once in the air all you have to do is relax in the harness, enjoy the view and bask in the enjoyment of this one of a kind sport (Deakin, 2010).
For this parasailing is getting attention of many tourists now a day. Of course, parasailing has also life risk and accidents involved in it. Many accidents occur for bad weather, carelessness and lack of control. By its specification, it is clear that parasailing is a high-risk sport. On the other hand, parasailing is the wonderful way to enjoy and feel natural beauty from the top. It is a simple parachuteride from top of the hill and sea. When people start flying, they just listen to their heart beat and sound of wave, which bring mental peach to them. "Parasailing has been popularized by the sensation that it brings. Such sensation of freedom, discovery, and absolute bliss make the participant happy. The reward of an unforgettable experience is overwhelming for an activity that requires very little effort to perform (Deakin, 2010)". Because of this, parasailing is getting popular now a day. Bangladesh added 'parasailing' in her service list in Cox's Bazaar and Himchori in 2010. Dariyanagar is well known for parasailing. Anyway, parasailing brings great opportunity for sports tourism of Bangladesh. If it is maintained carefully by expertise and made it affordable then it will be the first demand for the thrill-seeking tourist in Bangladesh.

Rationale of the Study
Bangladesh is enriched with huge sports tourism opportunities. Some new types of sports are entering in sports tourism but most of them are unfamiliar. Parasailing is one of those sports. It can draw a new picture in the beach site sports activities. Bangladesh has world's largest sandy beach (Wikipedia). Opposite of seaside there is appealing view of mountains. As a result, parasailing brings a great opportunity to enjoy the view of sea and mountain together. For this reason, parasailing is getting popularity in Bangladesh. Funfest group has started parasailing with some experts and trained up the new comers. Although parasailing has life risk but parasailing activities are growing with high speed. In this paper, researcher has tried to investigate the opportunities of parasailing according to Bangladesh's perspective and what types of challenges tourist and businessmen face for parasailing activities.

Objectives of the Study
Parasailing is one of the fashionable sports in the world. For the high cost it is afforded by only rich people. Bangladesh has started parasailing in Cox's Bazar and Himchori. It has full of opportunities for developing tourism activities. This is why we divide our objectives in two parts: Primary objectives -The primary objective of the study is to explore the prospects of parasailing activities and to find out the challenges and opportunities of the same in Bangladesh. The study will also introduce parasailing activities among adventurous-minded tourists and to find out new places for parasailing activities in Bangladesh.

Secondary objectives -
The secondary objectives of this paper are as under: a) To examine the stakeholders involved in the parasailing activities; b) To introduce the parties involved in the supply chain for parasailing business; c) To identify the safety system within this kind of activity; d) To explore the respondent attitudes on the opportunity and challenging factors of parasailing activities; and e) To identify the major challenges and barriers within the development of parasailing activities in Bangladesh.

Literature Review
The growth of tourism has led to increased participation in marine-based activities and interest in species found within aquatic ecosystems (Hoque et al., 2020). Many tourists now want to participate in marine activities during their trip such as parasailing, snorkeling, diving, surfing, and ocean kayaking (Van Beukering, 2004). (Deakin, 2010) opined that almost anyone and everyone can do parasailing. To him, not much skill is required of the user when he or she does it. He also mentioned that an adept team of parasail specialists will take you through some basic safety and training lessons before the parasail. People now-a-days want activities-based tourism and enjoy their holiday or leisure time. Sea always attracts people with its beauty and for its coral reefs, beaches, warm climate, unique topography, and warm clear waters (Kabiri, 2014).
Among the all-sea tourism activities parasailing is one of them and Bangladesh has a great opportunity to prosper in this sector because Cox's Bazaar is the longest natural sea beach in the world (Wikipedia).
Local community can play a major role in parasailing activities. Tourism activities in the island or beach area have both positive and negative impacts on the natural as well as social and environment aspects of the island (Ansari, 2006). Allowing tour companies to operate on public lands and in public marine areas, for example, may generate employment and be more cost effective for public land-management agencies, but may exclude individuals unable to pay for the activities. Proliferation of private tour operators may also generate a rapid increase in visitation, causing impacts such as crowding, pollution, and conflict among operators, visitors, and local residents. It deserves to be noted that coastal tourism management, planning, and education programs are often designed and implemented by the same agencies and organizations. This overlap is often desirable and is found in some instances of larger efforts of government to promote integrated coastal zone (Cicin-Sain, 1998).
Berkes, (2010) emphasized that 'Natural resources' and 'management' must be re-conceptualized. The resources are not solely free goods for human-centric use and that's why natural resources must be reconceptualized to include the protection of ecosystems and ecosystem services as resources for human wellbeing. Management must move away from efficiency, simplification, and command-and-control to an emphasis on stewardship, collaboration, partnerships, and adaptive governance. As the 21 st century comes into focus, tourism is being revealed as a major sociocultural force with a potential to destroy, protect, or otherwise dramatically reconfigure coastal and marine ecosystems and societies (Miller, 1991).

METHODOLOGY:
Research Design -The main purpose of this research paper is to find out the opportunities and challenges of parasailing in Bangladesh. Therefore, descriptive research design is applied here. Descriptive research method is a scientific method that describes situations. There are three main types of descriptive methods: observational methods, case-study methods, and survey methods.
The present research has used 'Survey Method' for this paper. In survey method research, participants answer questions through a questionnaire. As such, we constructed a survey questionnaire for this survey. The number of questions on the survey questionnaire was 33. Close ended questions were used to form the survey questionnaire. The researcher has tried to give her best efforts to make a reliable and informative questionnaire. After getting responses from the participants, the responses have been described and analyzed.
Target Population -The target population is the totality of individuals from which the sample might be drawn. A sample is the group of people who take part in the investigation. However, for this paper the target population was those who had the real experience in parasailing activities. Besides, those who had little experience or had desire for this kind of activity were also counted as target population.

Sampling:
The sample included respondents from all genders, ages, social statuses, professional backgrounds, etc. Simple random sampling methods have been used to choose the respondents. The reason for using simple random sampling is low cost and limited resources at researcher's hand. Utmost care has been given to collect accurate and reliable responses. The sample included actual and potential travelers, and college and university students. Besides, data were collected using "Google doc" from the "researchers' Facebook friend list". Thus, the study included a sample of approximately 52 persons for collecting necessary information.
Data Collection Procedure: Both primary and secondary data have been used in this research. For getting primary data, five adventure-minded touristsand forty-seven general people were selected for interview with a pre-designed questionnaire. The sources of secondary data and information includes: Bangladesh Parjaton Corporation (BPC), The Statistical Year Books, The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and UNWTO-2013. In addition to that, literature review and theoretical analysis of available articles on different journals, periodicals, newspapers, internet and other related materials have been consulted and used as references.
Data Processing and Analysis: Data processing means conversion of raw data into a usable format. Appropriate statistical tools have been applied for this purpose. These include percentage, means, standard deviation, variance, etc. Besides, the data collected from the respondents were processed using SPSS to get usable information for this paper.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS:
Stakeholders -A stakeholder is a party that has an interest in a company and can either affect or be affected by its business. The primary stakeholders in a typical corporation are its investors, employees, customers and suppliers. In a corporation, as defined in its first usage in a 1983 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research Institute, a stakeholder is a member of the "groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist (Ansari et al., 2006). The theory was later developed and championed by R. Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then, it has gained wide acceptance in business practices and in theorizing relating to strategic management, corporate governance, business purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
The stakeholders for parasailing are given below: These materials must be needed. It also requires minimum standard equipments that parasail operators must use in order to offer rides as well as a minimum level of experience and professional competence for those who operate parasailing vessels (Scolaro, 2014). Some materials are available in the local market. Other materials can be collected from Cox's Bazar local market. These materials available include -Speed boat and Tunic, Macro. Winwe enterprise produces parachute and distributes in the local market of the country.
Distribution: There is a distribution process that helps to distribute their product. The distribution process of parasail business is simple. This process is: Producer→ to local dealer→ to the resort→ Bought by local people→ Rent.
Supplier: 'Tadib' started first parasailing in Himchori. He sets up his firm whose name is 'Fun Fest'. Fun Fest is located in Himchari Beach, not far from the main beach. They offer regular parasailing, where the adventurers wear a parachute to catch the wind and fly up like a kite while being towed by a boat. There is also "super fun" parasailing, a longer, and more thrilling ride that makes one drop into the middle of the sea until the feet touch water. Additionally, visitors to Fun Fest have the opportunity to do other activities such as land sailing, zorbing and banana boating. They have offered 2 types of packages:  Package-A: 2 km, 5 minutes (1500 Tk.)  Package-B: 3km, 10 minutes (2000 Tk.) They have direct booking system. No advance booking is required.
Safety system for Parasailing Activities -For parasailing adventure activities safety must always be an important concern. A team of parasailing professionals must be there to train users and make sure that customers get nothing but pure pleasure in the parasailing experience (Deakin, 2010). It is the job of the operator to make people feel as safe and comfortable (http://www.furycat.com/key-west-blog/ parasailing-key-west). There must have a parachute and a hydraulic platform that will provide the users launch pad. Wind and speed combinations will be carefully studied to achieve an almost zero margin of error (Deakin, 2010).

Respondents' Socio-Economic and Demographic
Profiles -The following    The above table revealed that out of 12 attributes respondents showed highly positive attitude only on five attributes which have highest mean score < (M=3.60) and 7 attributes scored between (M=3.00) and (M=3.60) respectively. Table 3 shows the opinion given to the attributes by the respondents. Surprisingly, statistics shows that lack of promotion (M=3.96) is one of the most challenging factors of parasailing activities in Bangladesh. This is harsh truth for the present situation of parasailing in Bangladesh. Technical problem (M=3.87) has been found as another major burden of parasailing activities in Bangladesh. Seasonal barriers (M=3.79), high risk involvement during high tide (M=3.73), lack of parasailing camp (M=3.67), widespread apathy among the tourists for the sake of high price (M=3.60) are also some significant challenges that have been detected from the response of the respondents.

Recommendations
The following are the recommendations for the operations of parasailing activities effectively in Bangladesh: 1) Sustainability of parasailing should be ensured by regulatory authority. "Leesfield Scolaro with other key advocates has been at the forefront of promoting the passage of laws and regulations to increase parasailing safety. The regulations are a stepping stone to increase parasail safety, but much more needs to be added (Scolaro, 2014). 2) Parasailing is a risky game which has risk of injury. By the very nature of parasailing, accidents invariably result in either catastrophic injuries or death (Scolaro, 2014). As such, safety and security must be ensured in beach areas. "After speaking with members of the Coast Guard, Leesfield understood that human error was the common denominator in almost every single parasailing accident. Faulty equipment, inadequate weather-tracking equipment, operator error, or lacks of training are always contributing factors of parasailing tragedies (Scolaro, 2014).
As parasailing is new game, so people have lack of proper training and knowledge of flying. Training is needed for the operators of parasailing activities. The goal is simple: Safer parasailing experiences for consumers and to eliminate human errors associated with parasailing activities (Scolaro, 2014). "Of course, the ride is controlled 100% by an experienced captain who uses a mechanical winch to send the user up and reel him back in. The captain is also well aware of the wind and its direction in relation to the boat, so there is no need to worry. Parasailing Tips". 3) Parasailing can come as a solo activity or packaged with other water sports and because of parasailing's popularity, it is commonly found as a regular activity in seaside areas (Deakin, 2010). "It is also a very peaceful experience. Most of the time people come back down to say that it was a surprisingly peaceful and quiet (http://www.fur ycat.com/key-west-blog/parasailing-key-west)". As such, more seaside areas in Bangladesh should be identified for parasailing activities. 4) Advertisement and campaign should be done regularly to know about parasailing. As parasailing is a peaceful, popular and recreational kiting experience, effective promotional activities will help to make it popular in the seaside areas of Bangladesh as well. 5) "Parasailing is a popular aero sport that involves the thrill of flying high like a bird. It is a recreational activity turned into a sport in which the participant is tied with a canopy wing also known as a parasailing wing. (http://sportsmatik. com/sports-corner/sports-know-how/parasailing g/)". Public and private coordination is needed for growing parasailing activities. Public sector should arrange the required training facilities and safety measures for this business. As it is a small business requiring a small amount of capital, private sector should come up to participate and popularize parasailing activities in Bangladesh.
All commercial parasail operators should have a valid Coast Guard License for carrying passengers for hire (http://law.lis.virginia.gov/admin code/title4/agency15/chapter450/section30/). 6) Parasailing time should be increased for more experience. Parasailing shall only be conducted from one-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset. It is very stressful to fly in the hot weather and also sun affects the eyes. Because of this that time is chosen by organizer to reduce the risk of accident. 7) Cost for parasailing should be reduced. As a developing country, here maximum people have low income and they can save few for their holiday. All the level of tourist can take the taste of parasailing if the cost is reduced.

Last Thoughts with Concluding Remarks
Adventure tourism has become a new trend now-a-day. Generally, most of the tourists are young people. Young people love adventure. From the above discussion we found that parasailing is not widely available in Bangladesh. Only Himchori area is used for parasailing activities. But the cost is too much high (5 minutes for TK. 1500 and 10 minutes for TK.2500). Some of the people are aware of safety and security of the equipment which are used for parasailing activities. Developing adventure tourism in some places like Cox's Bazar and Saint Martin can help Bangladesh to promote more adventure tourism. The main objective of this paper is to explore the possibility of parasailing activities and identify the problems associated with parasailing. At last, we can say that developing parasailing activities in Cox's Bazar needs to be considered as the best way to diversify the growing of tourism industries in Bangladesh. But sustainability as well as safety should be considered as the main concern for parasailing in Bangladesh. With care and proper regulation Cox's can be the best place for parasailing. Local people can play a good role for parasailing but proper training must be ensured by regulatory authority. Moreover, campaign and awareness should be increased to developing parasailing in Bangladesh.

CONCLUSION:
Adventure tourism has emerged as a new trend now-aday. Generally, many of the adventure tourists are young people. Young people love adventure. From the discussion above, we found that parasailing is not widely introduced in Bangladesh. Only Himchori area is used for parasailing activities. But the cost is too much high (5 minutes for TK. 1500 and 10 minutes for TK. 2500). Many adventure-minded tourists are sensitive to safety of the equipment which is used for parasailing activities. Developing adventure tourism in places like Cox's Bazar and Saint Martin can help Bangladesh to promote more of this type of adventure tourism. The main objective of this research paper s to investigate and explore the likelihood of introducing parasailing activities and identify the problems associated with parasailing. At last, we can say that developing parasailing activities in Cox's Bazar needs to be considered as the best way to diversify the growing of tourism industries in Bangladesh. But sustainability and safety should be considered as the main concern for parasailing in Bangladesh. By taking proper care and enacting appropriate regulation Cox's can be turned into the best place for parasailing. Local people of parasailing sites should play good role in parasailing activities. But they should be given proper training and that should be ensured by the regulatory authority. Moreover, campaign and awareness should be increased to developing parasailing in Bangladesh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
I, as the author of this article, acknowledge the contributions of some of my teachers who helped me in the process of writing this article. I took help from some print and online articles for which I express my gratefulness to the authors of those articles.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:
I have written this article independently. For writing this article, I took help from some secondary literatures for which I have cited references properly. As such, I believe that the article will not create any conflict or competing interest with those authors.