SPECIAL REPORT : Concern as current hospitality industry shows negative trend

Arusha. Not long ago at Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC), one would be excused if one could not make it to another section of the complex due to multitudes of people.

The open space between the three multi-storey blocks would tell it all.

Delegates from around the world in various attires would converge for photos, admire souvenirs or merely network after the opening or closing of a high profile conference.

At the landing above, hundreds of people would be dining, while an equally sizeable number of them would be queuing to get out of meeting halls.

At the entrances, commuter buses and taxis would line up eagerly waiting for travellers, who would want to rush back to their hotels, or head to the airport or to one of the national parks.

It was brisk business for caterers, tour operators, foreign exchange bureaus, Internet cafes and artists.

Away from the centre, prime hotels registered good business, accommodating mainly foreign delegates and senior local officials. We are talking about bustling Arusha City that is on the verge of losing it all.

This scenario at AICC, the largest convention centre in Tanzania, reflected the pace of business up to two years ago.

Prime hotels had turned into mini conference centres, some fitted with modern equipment suited for the purpose.

There were cases, when the entire urban area would host a series of conferences and meetings, involving technocrats, policy makers or professionals, you mention it.

Media representatives were kept on their toes. If they are not covering a session of a political nature, they would be at a high profile meeting.

As soon as the sun went down during the peak of the conference season, there would be lavish gala dinners, high end cocktail parties, and the like at the top hotels.

One conference could have evening parties at different locations throughout its stay in Arusha.

There is no doubt that tourism has benefited the local economy.

A number of hotels and lodges were opened as from 2004 to cope with increasing demand.

The meetings that Arusha attracted varied. For local conferences, the bureaucrats in Dar es Salaam may have favoured it because of adequate meeting facilities and accommodation.

A meeting involving head teachers from across the country or district executive directors needs a city with ample conference facilities like AICC and budget hotels within the vicinity.

The favourable weather conditions and proximity to national parks could be other reasons. Many local institutions assembling employees to Arusha for the annual meetings would prefer taking them to leading tourist destinations in the zone.

For international conferences, the city was favoured as organisers ensured delegates visited iconic attractions nearby before or after the meetings.

But there were others, which had to be held here given the strategic location of the town. These are meetings, which had to do with the East African Community (EAC) and other regional bodies based in Arusha or those related to wildlife matters for which Arusha has an edge above others.

Things have changed

In the recent past, however, this is not entirely the case. The number of meetings has gone down.

Arusha continues being the hub of the country’s tourism industry, with visitors filling rooms in some hotels and thronging certain eating joints frequented by tourists and keeping the souvenir business moving on.

But a drop in the umber of meetings and conferences has led either to the closure of some outfits or the sale of others as original investors would not make them profitable. This trend has affected many people as scores of workers have been sent home.

The vibrancy in and around Arusha is conspicuously no longer there.

Other high profile hotels and famous for hosting regional meetings have been rendered dormant.

The freeze on meetings and conferences by the government since President John Magufuli came to power is likely to have added salt to injury, but it is not the only reason why hotels are registering low businesses.

One of the leading clients for conferences in Arusha used to be the EAC secretariat, a regional organisation, which is now felt in the area after the coming to an end of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

EAC shifted to its premises which were completed in late 1212. Since last year, it has been increasingly using its meeting halls for nearly all its sessions, including the Council of Ministers, which is the second most important organ of the Community after the Summit of Heads of State.

The regional body, which has been experiencing financial hitches since last year, has started using a video-conferencing facility to cut down the number of meetings.

It has also taken deliberate measures to control the number of sponsored officials invited to meetings.

At local level, the wind is no longer blowing in favour of private hotels, which used to host a number of meetings for Arusha-based government departments and institutions. At the heart of the city, a new conference facility has been constructed to cater for meetings and conferences unlike in the past when they used to be convened in hotels or lodges, some outside the city centre.

Operators of big hotels admit they were feeling the pinch, not necessarily because of dropping number of foreign visitors - be they tourists or business people - but by the declining of government-sponsored meetings which, in turn, reduced the volume of guests seeking accommodation.

“Although we receive some foreign visitors, the government was our main client,” lamented Paul Madunda, general manager of Palace Hotel, located a few metres from the famous Clock Tower.

He told The Citizen on Sunday recently that room occupancy at the towering 95-room facility opened four years ago has gone down by over 50 per cent. The hotel built at the cost of Sh16 billion is now receiving very few guests for meetings at its three halls.

At Kibo Palace, arguably one of the leading hotels in Arusha, the impact has been visible, but only for meetings involving the government and the EAC and allied institutions.

“We know this is a hard time for the industry, but the flow of guests has not reduced so much,” said Nuru Makia, the sales and marketing officer.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Kenyan, who has been managing another hotel near the Clock Tower for nearly 15 years, said he was not surprised by the downward trend of hotel business in Arusha.

“You should expect such changes, when there is a change of the way the government is doing things,” he told The Citizen on Sunday, noting that the freezing of meetings held in hotels by the government is a measure to cut down costs.

He said although he was no longer getting bookings for accommodation or meetings from government departments or agencies, he had retained his traditional clients being the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the like.

But the hotelier said that generally the circulation of money country-wide had gone down due to various stringent measures taken by the government and that had also affected the banks.

Allbless Shoo, the director of Fifi eateries in Arusha and Moshi, said the decline was an indication that not all was well in the tourism sector.

He added that the government did not want to spend money on meetings it deemed unnecessary.

He said his chain of tourist restaurants had lost business by up to 50 per cent. He suggested that much as the government could not dish out money to hotels, it should find ways to create a more conducive environment to boost tourism.