In My Book of Things, the tourism industry of the United Republic of Tanzania (popular as ‘Tanzania’ for short) is undergoing rapid transformation of the other kind.
This is the kind that results in a marked change for the better – unlike the mathematical function whereby the transformation is limited to a conversion into another form, nature or appearance of ‘similar value!’
But, I seem to digress early here…
The leading front-page story in The Citizen on July 16 this year was basically about source markets for Tanzania’s burgeoning tourism business.
If I say so myself, it came as a surprise – at least to me – that the USA is today the world’s top source-market for foreign tourists coming to Tanzania. Ye gods!
According to the Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, 11.9 per cent (87,238 tourists) of the tourist arrivals in the country in year-2017 were from the US.
Other major tourist source markets (with their share in percentages shown in brackets) were: the UK (66,491 tourists: 9.1 per cent); Germany (58,370 tourists: 8%); Italy (49,909 tourists: 6.8%); India (39,115 tourists: 5.4%); Israel (5.0%); France (4.6%); China (29,224 tourists: 4.0%)…
Not a single country from Africa or South America featured as Tanzania’s tourist source-market among the top 15 sources as listed by the Tourism ministry. This does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that Africans don’t travel as tourists to other African countries… Oh; I don’t know!
Perhaps also eye-opening is that tourists from China are the biggest spenders among foreign tourists to Tanzania.
According to the year-2016 International Visitors Exit Survey by the National Bureau of Statistics, a single Chinese tourist spent an average $541 a night while touring Tanzania in 2016.
This was about three times the average of $178 spent per night by tourists from the US (yes: the United States, the world’s biggest Economy); the UK (Tanzania’s immediate-past colonial master); Australia; Canada and France… [See ‘US is Tanzania’s top source of tourists;’ The Citizen: July 16, 2018].
Oh, the transformation is in high gear every which way. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) has toppled over Mount Kilimanjaro (I think) as Tanzania’s leading ‘single-destination’ tourist attraction. It now accounts for more-than-a-half of the country’s 1.3 million tourist arrivals annually.
NCA contributed Sh125 billion to government coffers in FY-2017/18 – and projects to receive some 750,000 tourists “this year,” generating an estimated Sh156.5 billion in earnings. [See ‘Ngorongoro top tourist destination;’ The Citizen, July 19, 2018].
Addressing the Ngorongoro Investment Forum in Arusha on July 17 this year, the deputy minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Japhet Hasunga, challenged the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) and other stakeholders to “establish mechanisms that would support investments in, and diversification of, the country’s tourism industry.
A truer challenge was never made in recent times… Cheers!
By Karl Lyimo
Source: thecitizen.co.tz
