UN-WTO meeting ‘to give tourism a boost’

Arusha. It may not be likened to a sudden surge of visitors queuing at the entry post to get into the country.

But stakeholders believe the recent UN World Tourism Organization (UN-WTO) Regional Commission for Africa conference was another boost for Tanzania’s key economic sector.

“The meeting was another eye opener to market our attractions to the world,” said Prof Jaffari Kidegesho, the Rector of Moshi-based College of African Wildlife Management (CAWM).

He said as curtains fell on the high-profile gathering in Arusha, the event once again exposed vast opportunities in Tanzania’s hospitality sector.

“It was an opportunity to share and exchange experiences and cases from different countries,” he told The Citizen.

Prof Kidegesho said the conference not only took place as the tourism sector was recovering from the severe impact of Covid-19.

Tanzania, he said, has taken deliberate measures to diversify its tourist destinations through MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions), among others.

There was also renewed emphasis on cultural and ecotourism, for the latter given the ecologically rich nature reserves the country is endowed with.

The 65th meeting of the UN-WTO attracted policy makers from 33 African countries and tourism industry players from within and beyond the continent.

However, the Rector said more efforts should be made to improve the infrastructure related to tourism operations such as the roads and training of the tour guides.

CAWM or simply Mweka Wildlife College, he explained, was among the beneficiaries of the Covid Relief Fund aimed to resuscitate the tourism sector.

The college received Sh1.01 billion which, according to the natural resources don was spent to train over 1,700 tour guides and allied apprenticeships.

The Conservation Commissioner-cum-CEO of Tanzania Forestry Services (TFS), Prof Dos Santo Silayo, said African tourism would largely remain to be nature-based.

“We will be in trouble if we don’t take enough to preserve nature. This is all that makes it (our tourism) to happen,” he said.

He challenged the African policy makers to develop the financial instruments that would sustain the continent’s nature based tourism.

These, he pointed out, would work in perfection through the much-touted Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.

Tanzania, the don explained, was the show case in such partnership, citing funding schemes initiated to boost tourism and at the same time protect nature.

They include the Tourism Development Fund and the Tanzania Wildlife Protection Fund, both launched in the 1990s.

The third financial instrument is the Tanzania Forest Fund initiated a few years ago basically to protect the forest resources.

“Forests offer habitats for wildlife. We have to maintain such resources that tourism is dependent on,” he explained.

However, he cautioned that the funding models to boost tourism must be diversified to guarantee availability of critically needed funds.

These, the don hinted, have to include exploiting opportunities in the blue economy and engaging more in carbon trade.

Diversification of funding sources, he pointed out, will enable the African countries to maximize and sell more and more of their destinations.

He said Tanzania was currently reaching out to the potential investors to invest in the southern tourist circuit “which has enormous beautiful areas”.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan recently announced that a new version of Royal Tour film has been initiated for the southern circuit.

Jost Neumann, the director of the Netherlands-based TU Care Foundation, said Tanzania would soon be roped in Conservation Finance being rolled out globally.

The instrument is designed to preserve the budding wildlife and natural attractions and at the same time generate money through tourism.

The Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) used the occasion to market the available investment slots in the hospitality sector and gains made in the recent past.

Between January 2012 and December last year, some 696 investment projects in tourism worth $2.8 billion registered and cleared for execution.

They are set to create 42,571 jobs, according to the TIC zonal manager for the northern zone regions, Mr Daudi Riganda.

Tanzania has recorded an encouraging rise in tourist arrivals after a sharp drop from 1.5 million in 2019 to only about 620,000 following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.