Bangladesh's travel industry faces dramatically harsher penalties under a controversial draft ordinance that increases fines tenfold and triples prison sentences, industry leaders warned.

Proposed ‘Travel Agency Registration and Control Ordinance–2025’ would raise maximum fines from 5 lakh taka to 50 lakh taka, whilst prison terms would jump from six months to three years.

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday at a capital’s hotel, S N Monjur Murshed (Mahbub), former President of the Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB), said the changes threatened to devastate the sector.

"If this ordinance is enacted, most of the general travel agencies in Bangladesh will be forced to shut down," Murshed told reporters. The draft law puts nearly 6 thousand travel agencies, 1,400 Hajj agencies, and 2,700 recruiting agencies at risk of losing their businesses.

The ordinance also introduces stringent new requirements, including security deposits of 10 lakh taka for offline agencies and one crore taka for online operators. Agencies would be banned from purchasing or selling tickets to other travel agents and must conduct all transactions through government-designated financial channels.

Murshed accused the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism of shifting blame onto legitimate businesses following recent scandals involving Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) that embezzled hundreds of crores from customers.

"They are now trying to amend the previously passed law in Parliament and introduce a new ordinance to benefit a select group of individuals," he said.

Industry representatives are demanding dialogue with the government to protect thousands of entrepreneurs from what they termed a ‘black law’.