Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 1

As expected, my trip to the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka was very long. My journey started at 5:30 am with a pick up at my home and after a couple of stops to pick up other travelers I arrived at the airport around 7:15 am, checked-in and cleared security before heading towards my departure gate to meet up with my travelling companion Derek Cameron from the CCA. Our flight to Hong Kong left at 9:30 am and lasted about 16 hours and with the exception of some turbulence about three hours out of Hong Kong was relatively uneventful. Upon arriving in Hong Kong I enjoyed a short rest and shower in one of the airport’s traveler’s lounges, had some dinner and made a few phone calls before boarding the Dragon Air flight to Dhaka. This was a short four hour flight and it seemed like a breeze after the 16 hour marathon of earlier in the day. Got to Dhaka at about 1:00 am local time, took over an hour to get through customs and to claim my luggage and I arrived at my hotel just before 3:00 am.

Got a wake-up call for 8:00 so that I could attend the first conference presentation at 9:00 and begin my workshop at 10:00. The opening session was very interesting and had speakers from the ACCU and from the Bangladesh Credit Union League. They talked about the system and the economy and it was a real eye opener for me. Bangladesh has a population of 150 million people, making it the eighth most populous country in the world and with its relatively small land mass it has a population density of over 950 people per square Km. It is also an extremely poor country with a national average annual per capita GDP of only US$ 599. I expect that poverty and its alleviation will be a recurring theme at this week’s sessions.

My workshop topic for today was “Understanding the Youth Market” and from my perspective the session went very well considering cultural and language barriers with 22 people from 8 countries represented. It was interesting to me that Credit Unions around the world share a similar challenge…that of being relevant to the next generation of members. We talked about segmentation and tried to understand what drives the youth market (defined as under 35) in making purchase decisions and for signing up for Credit Union membership. We will continue the session tomorrow and on Wednesday we will create a marketing plan that will be endorsed by ACCU and rolled out to its member nations.

So far so good. Feeling good, although a little tired now that the day is done. Going to have some dinner in the hotel before turning in for an early night.