BY GOOGLE
Authorities in Tanzania said this week efforts were afoot to re-brand the East African nation as Africa’s leading tourist and business destination.
Lazaro Nyalandu, the minister for natural resources and tourism, said President Jakaya Kikwete will next month launch television advertisements aimed at promoting the country’s tourist attractions as part of the re-branding.
Nyalandu said Pursuit Production, a US based firm, has already been tasked with filming tourist attractions and producing advertisements which CNN and the BBC World Service will air worldwide.
Dubbed ‘Re-branding Destination Tanzania,’ the filming and production of the television advertisements will cost US$1,5 million, said Nyalandu.
“I am optimistic that the advertisements will boost tourist arrivals,” the minister said, adding that the tourism industry has of late been greatly affected by outbreak of the Ebola virus negatively covered by international media with many implying the scourge was all over Africa.
“The firm has finished filming tourist attractions in Zanzibar, and is now filming Serengeti before proceeding to Kilimanjaro Mountain and Ngorongoro Crater, among others,” Nyalandu said.
He said the government and development partners were footing the cost of the re-branding estimated to attract at least 2,5 million tourists annually in the next five years as opposed to only 1.3 million tourists visiting the country annually at the moment.
Tourism directly employs nearly half a million Tanzanians and it represents approximately 3,4% of Tanzania’s total GDP but the level could reach an estimated 10% considering its indirect impact on other areas such as agriculture and transportation.
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