Tourism remains Tanzania’s number one foreign exchange earner

Tanzania’s Central Bank has officially confirmed that tourism remains the number one foreign exchange earner after overtaking gold exports last year.

Figures made available from a source in Dar es Salaam speak of earnings topping US$1.88 billion for 2013, up from US$1.7 billion in 2012 and US$1.35 billion in 2011.

This makes tourism, for now at least, Tanzania’s leading economic sector though gas exports, when the newly discovered gas fields in the South of Tanzania have been fully developed and tapped for production, are likely to perform even better in the future in monetary terms.

Tanzania’s tourism team is now returning from attending ITB 2014 and are reportedly in good spirit though some have admitted that the ongoing controversy over poaching in the country and an increase in crime on the holiday island of Zanzibar have caused and continue to cause concern among the tourism fraternity.

Tanzania’s tourism industry is now focusing on the upcoming Karibu Tourism Trade Fair in Arusha, which is due to take place between 06th and 08th of June, where all leading Tanzanian hotels, resorts, safari lodges and camps and safari operators will be present to showcase their attractions, besides of course dozens of companies from the wider East African region who have come to appreciate the pull Karibu has developed over the years as Eastern Africa’s foremost international tourism trade fair.

Karibu is then followed later in the year by the Swahili International Tourism Expo, taking place in Dar es Salaam from October 1-4.