Efforts to promote tourism pay dividend

The Arusha Times February 8, 2008

Tourism authorities have named the Serengeti National Park and Mount Kilimanjaro among the best 50 world tourism destinations for the year 2008.

The Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, Prof Jumanne Maghembe, said this in Parliament while tabling a Bill to enact a new tourism law.

Prof Maghembe said the naming of the two sites by globally respected tourism watchers is an indication that recent efforts by the government to promote tourist attractions are yielding fruits.

But despite having these world’s tourists attractions, Tanzania is still lagging behind its neighbour, Kenya, in terms of revenues generated from the sector as well as the total number of tourists who visit the country annually.

Tanzania is aggressively marketing its attractions to raise the number of tourists per year from 640,000 to 1 million, to rival Kenya as East Africa?s leading destination.

If the target is attained in the next two to three years as projected, government revenues from the fastest growing sector would raise to $1bn, he said.

In 2006, the sector contributed 17.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), earning $862 million and showing potential to become the number one foreign exchange earner.

However the government has often come under criticism for doing little to promote and open the sector, with corruption-mainly in trophy hunting by a clique of influential politicians and businessmen taking centre stage.

Prof Maghembe told Parliament that the proposed law would seek to streamline the sector and bring it to acceptable standards by creating an enabling environment for investors and the local communities to participate.

â€Tanzania has seven sites included in the world heritage list, trailing Ethiopia and Morocco with eight sites, the leading in Africa. We have all the reasons to build on this,†the minister declared.

Three more sites have been listed for inclusion in the world cultural heritage sites while several other sites across the country are in contention for the special recognition, he further noted.

The new law would establish a tourism board and a new ministerial directorate that would oversee the development of the sector and prescribe registration, training, service and marketing standards.

The Bill also states that tour guide activities would exclusively be carried out by Tanzanian citizens in a deliberate effort to have locals take up significant market share in the sector.

However while MPs welcomed the Bill, early contributors on the floor wanted the government to diversify attractions and cut concentration in game reserves and major towns, reports the Citizen.