TANZANIA is among few African countries
blessed with an abundance of tourist delights which makes the sector the
prime engine of growth as the country races to make for lost time.
Its coast, with ribbons of beautiful
white beaches, is parked with cultural and historic sites. The
clove-rich islands of Zanzibar and Pemba have lost none of their magic
and romance.
Accounting 14 per cent of the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP), second only to agriculture which generates 34
per cent, tourism has a positive impact to the national economy due to
the subsequent rise in demand and other services.
Currently, public and private
stakeholders in the sector have been putting up more efforts to increase
tourists visiting the country from 800,000 to more than 1,000,000.
The stakeholders are convinced that
tourism benefits other sectors for having a wide-ranging positive
multiplier effects to the national economy. Lidwien Appels, chief
executive officer of the Hotels Association of Tanzania (HAT), says
tourism creates jobs in the tertiary sector, but also encourages growth
in the primary and secondary sectors.
The concept of multiplier effect, she
explains, is how many times money spent by a tourist circulates through a
country’s economy. “In our industry, goods and services that are
consumed at the point of production, especially in villages, results in
greater benefits and impact into the rural economy,” Appels says.
More tourists mean the construction of
hotels, more assured income for farmers supplying food to hotels and
more jobs opportunities for the unemployed.
Generally, in tourist delights such as
Mount Kilimanjaro, Mikumi National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Selous Game
Reserve, historic town of Bagamoyo, Ruaha National Park and many other
places, there is subsequent rise in different economic activities as
well as improvement of the transport infrastructure.
The money international tourists spend in Tanzania comes from overseas and this can be considered as an `export’.
Industry experts believe that what
Tanzania earns from tourism is just only a drop in the ocean and that
the sector can be expanded almost considerably. As a treasure trove of
natural wonders, the country stands a greater chance of moving forward
with tourism-based economic growth and development because of 28 per
cent of its surface area of 945,203 square kilometres is dedicated to
wildlife conservation.
A study by Josaphat Kweka, Oliver
Morrissey and Adam Blake entitled “The Economic Potential of Tourism in
Tanzania,” noted that there is a significant stimuli which tourism
offers many sectors in the economy – agriculture, manufacturing and the
service sectors.
It noted that expenditure per tourist
has increased from US$425 in 1990 to more than US$1,000 in 1998, higher
than the African averages of US$330 to about US$400, according to
figures from the World Tourism Organisation.
A number of cultural tourism enterprises
have been set up in various regions of the country, but more often in
the rural areas. Apart from the added revenue for the rural dwellers,
where holidaymakers pay a development levy, jobs have been created for
the local guides, local food is also sold and school supported by the
initiative.
Most visitors, because they want to
experience a local setting, enthusiastically eat local food and buy
artifacts from the villagers. Tourism experts who have conducted various
researches in Tanzania agree that the sector has an important role, not
only as a foreign exchange earner, but also in generating demand for
the output of other sectors.
These sector linkages and the aggregate
demand, add an important dimension to the analysis of the economic
impact of tourism. There are few studies which have looked at the direct
economic benefits of the expansion of tourism in relation to the
indirect effects of the output of other sectors.
Given the sector’s potential gains, in
terms of foreign exchange generation and tax revenue, stakeholders say
there is scope for a government investment policy that enhances the
linkage effects.
They agree that the industry can
generate great revenues but this will not be handed on ‘a silver plate’
without improving the business environment by mainstreaming regulations.
They say to propel the sector to greater heights, developing a strategy
for growth and public-private sector marketing is of paramount
importance.
There’s therefore the need to identify
hurdles holding back the sector’s growth to enable it remain
competitive. Last year, President Jakaya Kikwete directed the government
to pay particular attention to agriculture, mining and tourism as the
three sectors have the potential to provide the stimulus to the whole
economy.
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