Regional meeting to boost tourism

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is planning to effectively utilize the upcoming Southern African Development Community (Sadc) summit in promoting its tourist sites as well as boosting tourism’s contribution to the national economy.

Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) managing director Ms Devota Mdachi told The Citizen that the summit offers a unique opportunity to Tanzania to promote its unique tourism potentials on the continent and globally.

She said that it is a once in a while chance. “We, as the responsible agency to promote out tourist attractions, will utilize this opportunity as much as we can,” she said.

Tanzania is expected to host the 39th Sadc summit which is scheduled for August 17 and 18. It will be preceded by preliminary meetings of ministers and permanent secretaries from Sadc member countries between August 6 and 16. This summit will also be preceded by the All Sadc Industrialisation Week. The summits will also see Tanzania taking the block’s chairmanship from Namibia.

“We are all up for the task because this is an opportunity and as the saying goes opportunity never come twice. TTB is committed to seizing the chance, as I said, to aggressively penetrate further into the global tourism market and promote what we are proud of,” ” said Ms Mdachi during an interview with The Citizen.

She said the visitors will be taken to all the strategic tourist attraction sites both around the city of Dar es Salaam and other areas such as Zanzibar and Bagamoyo. However, she did not disclose whether they would do this for free or the visitors would be charged.

“That doesn’t matter now. What matters is to introduce these peoples to what we have and ultimately using them as ambassadors to promote our tourism potentials. That’s the plan,” she said.

She added that in introducing the visitors to the country’s heritage, TTB will make sure that rooms in hotels that will accommodate Sadc guests will be equipped with special video footage showing Tanzania’s richness in terms of tourist attractions.

Hotel Association of Tanzania (HAT) chief executive Nura-Lisa Karamagi said hoteliers would not expect special packages for the summit’s visitors because the summit would take place during the high season when the hotel business is quite good with room occupancy taking up to eighty per cent.

“I don’t say that the summit doesn’t matter at all, of course, it adds a dollar to hoteliers’ accounts. What I am saying is its contribution to the hotel business could have been enormous if it came at the low season [March, April and May],” she said.

Still, she regarded the hosting of the summit herein Tanzania as a great help in terms of business, urging the government to be as aggressive as possible to make sure that it finds tenders around the globe to get some big conferences organised in the country.

“This is the best way we can beat our competitor – Rwanda – which has now become the hub for the big summit. The government has got to act tough if it’s committed to attracting more conferences to be hosted in Tanzania,” said Ms Karamagi.