Potential of tourist industry in TZ: Are we on the right track?

I recall what Mwalimu Nyerere once said: “You cannot develop people. You must allow people to develop themselves.”

Tourism in Tanzania should have a developmental role in tune with the aspirations of local people. In order to understand the impact of the tourist industry, we should see it as part of a complex inter-related chain of events covering many sectors that results into a profitable tourist industry.

The direct contribution of Tourism to GDP was TZS 2,975.6bn (5.1 per cent of total GDP) in 2014 and directly supported 467,000 jobs (4.3 per cent of total employment).

Tourism industry is one of the world’s largest industries with a global economic contribution (direct, indirect and induced) of almost $7.6 trillion in 2014. Worldwide, the tourism industry has experienced steady growth almost every year. International tourist arrivals increased from 528 million in 2005 to 1.13 billion in 2014. Economies of some countries like Macau, Seychelles and Bahamas are heavily reliant on tourist industry.

Tanzania is endowed with wonderful tourist attractions, from the Serengeti plains with their annual mass migrations to towering, jungle-clad mountains and paradise archipelagos.

There are 16 national parks, 29 game reserves, 40-controlled conservation areas (including the Ngorongoro Conservation Area) and marine parks. Tanzania is also home to Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa. It also has some of the best pristine sandy beeches and most importantly very friendly and peace loving people.

Thought the the industry has been growing is not doing well in comparison with neighbour countries such as Kenya. Thus a logical question are: Why are we not reaching the full potential of the tourist industry? Why mediocrity performance when all the inputs are available? What is lacking?

With the recent drive by President Magufuli to revive ATC and bring tourist directly the tourist industry has to equally respond and develop the industry proportionally.

In this digital world we know that communication is very fast hence any negative incidence with a tourist goes viral immediately and for such an incidence 10 potential tourists will change their mind.

When tourists arrive in the country they first meet the immigration officers at the airport. In used to travel a lot and had an opportunity to observe how the immigration officers conduct themselves.

They are unwelcoming and rude. They never have the return change in dollars for the visa fee and act as if they are doing the tourists a favour. After a long flight from Europe, and paying a fortune who is interested in facing such a group of highhanded officers? Immigration officers must learn to be polite and civic.

Next is the taxi driver. How many tourists have been mugged of their valuables from the airport to their hotel—try stopping at Tazara traffic lights at night with your windows down. Most tourists will spend a day or two in Dar before going to their chosen destinations. What is there in Dar to see if not chaotic traffic? It’s high time the city father do something to change Dar, is there a sight seeing tour like in other metropolitan cities?

The next stop is hotels, game parks, beeches and historic sights-here the staff will be polite and welcoming but these are very expensive compared to other countries in the region. A lot needs to be done to improve these places to be competitive and attractive. What is being done to advertise these places on the global market?

Last year I popped in at the Tanzania High Commissioners offices in Nairobi. I did not see a single printed flyer or similar material about our countries tourist destinations.

Honorable Minister invests in this issue and let professionals do this. In your ministry there should be a research section, ensure the majority of tourist provide a feedback of their trip and ask leading questions on how we can improve our tourist industry-make these findings public so that you can be judged accordingly.

If I was to appraise you primarily, I would want to see how much money is made and how many jobs have been creation is done by your ministry-anything short of the agreed targets and you should be shown the door.

The other issue is internal domestic tourism—this is almost non-existent. I have known colleagues who must visit their villages in Kilimanjaro mandatorily twice or thrice a year but in their life time have not seen Mafia island.

I have not seen any drive to announce special packages during the festive season for Tanzanians to visit their own heritage sights-what proportion of the primary school children have visited one of the game parks?

Despite multiple tourist assets this industry has performed below its potential. The current structure, organization and management of international tourism favours multinational corporations from the developed world or local elites.

This assures a very large outflow of resources generated by tourism. When the leakages of foreign exchange are discounted and the local resources invested the net economic gain is rather small. We should partner with foreign investors but should critically ask: who gains and who loses?

For tourism to reach its sustainable potential in terms of local livelihoods and biological conservation, one of the key issues is how to support efforts to empower local communities to control their economic activities.

Honourable Mister, a long way still lays ahead.

Zulfiqarali Premji is a retired Muhas professor. His career spans over 40 years in academia, research and public health. He has authored over 100 publications. He is currently living in Canada.