TOURISM SURGE GOOD, BUT WE MUST NOT LOSE FOCUS
Tourism is among the economic sectors that have been ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic. Most world tourist source markets imposed severe lockdowns, which adversely impacted Tanzanian tourism whose borders were open each way.
Travel restrictions in the UK, US, Germany, Spain and France threatened to send Tanzanian tourism crashing, leaving 1.6 million people jobless.
Tourism revenues plunged from $2.6bn in 2019 to $1.7bn last year. Sadly, this led to retrenchment of many Tanzanians whose livelihoods largely depend on various tourist activities.
However, the sector is slowly but steadily recovering, with tourist arrivals in Tanzania rising by 15 percent in the first 10 months of 2021.
This is most encouraging, as tourism revenues significantly contribute to the country’s efforts to surmount its economic challenges, including jobs creation, women empowerment, poverty alleviation and inclusive economic growth generally.
Indeed, tourism is a vital part of our economy, and no efforts should be spared in attracting large numbers of tourists back to our pristine beaches, Mount Kilimanjaro, wildlife parks and historic sites – to name just a few unique tourist sites.
Kudos to the government, we say, for allocating Sh90.6 billion to 23 projects to revamp the tourism sector affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decision is already bearing fruit – and, with the aviation industry growing steadily, we hope to reach the annual target of two million tourist arrivals soon.
To that end, Tanzania must implement its recovery strategies aggressively to woo tourists as a matter of course.
The arrival of 716,169 foreign tourists in less than a year should not make us complacent. Instead, this should spur us into devising functional strategies that showcase Tanzania as a never-miss tourist destination of first choice.
LEARNING FROM ‘JUSTDIGGIT’
Virtually tucked away at the bottom of an inside page in our edition yesterday was a brief report with the discombobulating headline “Firms team up to fight climate change”.
But, the reality of it is that the Netherlands-based grassroots organisation named ‘Justdiggit’ is already “fighting global warming by re-greening Africa … by cooling down Planet Earth, in collaboration with assorted partners, including millions of farmers”. In the case of Tanzania, Justdiggit is working closely with local farmers, as well as the Ddoma-based Lead Foundation, the Paris-based Bolloré Transport & Logistics and Bongo flava musician Ben ‘Mnyang’anga’ Paul to raise awareness on the implementation of nature-based solutions in cooling down our planet.
This is by re-greening degraded land using natural vegetation – including “bringing back to life 16 million trees in the next five years, using the Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration method (FMNR), and bolstering rainwater harvesting practices”…
According to Justdiggit, “if Nature is brought back by applying cost-effective, nature-based solutions, we can mitigate global warming by 37 percent – thus benefiting Nature, biodiversity and people everywhere”. Effectively fighting adverse climate change is an obligation for humanity globally, and Justdiggit is showing one functional way of doing it. So, let others take a leaf out of the Justdiggit book on climate change mitigation - and just get it done.
