Tanzania's tourism counting the losses as virus hits hard

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Until recently - minting millions of dollars for the hospitality sector, airlines and tour vans, the hitherto robust tourism industry is now but a shadow of itself

Arusha. Tourism and tourism-related businesses are the main losers as the economy grapples with the dire effects of the corona-virus (Covid-19) pandemic.Until recently, minting millions of dollars for the accommodation outfits, local airlines and tour vans, the hitherto robust indus-try is now but a shadow of itself.

“We have totally closed. There is nothing going on,” said Wilbard Cham-buro, the chairman of the 300-member Tanzania Association of Tour Opera-tors (Tato) when reached yesterday.It is not the hotels and lodges, which depend on the foreign visitors by over 80 percent of their income, which have been severely affected by the pandemic.

State run convention centres are set to lose over Sh1 billion before June as scheduled conferences, which have been post-poned are likely to be can-celled due to Covid-19.The meetings were to be held between March and May, this year, at the Aru-sha International Confer-ence Centre (AICC) and Dar-based Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC).

Cancellation of the events have already dealt a blow to Arusha, the coun-try’s safari capital,whose economy depends on tour-ism by 70 percent. Several tourist outfits as well as budget hotels have become empty in the absence of cash-filled foreign visitors and have sent hundreds of their workers on leave.About 40 percent of workers in Arusha and its environs are employed with hotels, lodges,tour operations, travel agents, eating joints and sales of cultural artifacts. Tourism earnings for Tanzania rose from $2.19 billion in 2017 to $2.43bn in 2018, leading in foreign exchange generation.

For Zanzibar, bookings have lately dropped by 80 percent.Massive cancellations of bookings for incoming international flights is also a blow to the Kiliman-jaro International Airport (KIA) whose 70 pertcent of its arrivals are tourists.Tanzania’s horticulture industry has also been hit by the global pandemic as the demand of flowers, in particular, in the European market tumbled by 50 per-cent.On average, the horticul-ture products worth $ 63.6 million were being export-ed every month until early this year but drastically fell by 80 percent (a loss of $50.9m per month) due to the effects of Covid-19.