Beijing, — TANZANIA'S travel and tourism
industry has high growth potential but snags are blocking the efforts,
especially on tapping China market. Addressing that is of paramount
importance.
The government has of late realised the importance of diversifying
the tourism source markets -- and adopted the Think Asia strategy.
The goal here, aims to reduce the over-reliance on traditional
markets, such as the UK and the US, which continue to experience the
effects of economic recession.
Given the fact that tourism is now number two in contribution to the
country's GDP, the Think Asia should be approached with all tools
available to the sector to remain competitive and attractive.
The fruits of Think Asia have started to be seen. The latest data
from China National Tourism Administration show that in the first two
months of this year, China's tourist arrivals in Tanzania rose by 63 per
cent.
In totality, last year, for instance, the number of China's tourists
to Tanzania went up by 39.09 per cent to reach 16,100 visitors and and
going by statistics the number are expected to increase by 40 per cent
or 6,500 new tourists this year.
Yes. Kudos to Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB), Tanzania Embassy in China
and other stakeholders that have made it possible. But the number of
China's outbound tourists to Tanzania in comparison to the total in
Africa alone is a peanut as is less than one per cent of 1.89 million
tourists in 2013.
The estimation of the tourists from China was calculated under normal
conditions 'ceteris paribus' laws. Therefore, if hiccups that block
attraction of more tourists from the red dragon are addressed, the
number may surpass the per cent projected.
The challenges, apart from direct air link Dar es Salaam-Beijing that
locked out many to visit the three out of seven wonders of Africa,
namely Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park and Mount Kilimanjaro,
are not complex to sort out.
In short-term this lack of direct flight challenge could be addressed
by organising an international charter plane from China to Tanzania.
What is needed is coordination from both authorities, stakeholders
and travel agents. Tanzania's Ambassador to China, Lt Gen (rtd)
Abdulrahman Shimbo acknowledged that this direct air link vacuum
back-pedalled the efforts to attract more tourists from China.
However, he said, efforts were under-way to encourage Chinese Airline
to open direct routes to Tanzania. This will in turn open and shorten
the route to Dar.
China National Tourism Administration, Marketing and International
Cooperation Department, Deputy Director-General, Mr Xiong Shanhua, said
establishing of direct flight between Dar and Beijing will help boost
the number of Chinese tourists to Tanzania.
"The number of China tourists is increasing enormously to the world
(but) short supply of international airlines' seats to Tanzania cut down
the number of outbounds," Mr Xiong said. Also, Mr Xiong, hit on the
issuance of visa. He said authorities in Tanzania should considering on
relaxing some regulations regarding tourist visa obtaining.
This alone barred some tourists to visit Tanzania. The Deputy
Director-General said the Tanzania tourist marketers are not vigorously
advertising the Chinese's specific favourite attractions in the country,
like game park safaris, beaches, culture and historical places.
Other issues that need to be addressed immediately include tourist
hotels to start offering Chinese cuisine and employ staff who could at
least speak Mandarin as for the Chinese, French or English have little
importance to them.
The hotel management schools should at least start offering Chinese
language classes as some do for French and Portuguese as well. The good
thing is that two Chinese Confucius Institutions are operating in
Tanzania.
If banks, CRDB, Standard Chartered, and EcoBank have introduced China
desks at their portfolios," including forex exchange to ATMs accepting
UnionPay debit cards, what bars hoteliers, tour operators and the like
to do the same for their respective businesses?
The government is playing its crucial part to promote Think Asia
through its foreign missions and embassies in China, India and Russia,
but the private sector is the one that lags behind. In that vein the
modi operandi should change drastically, from government to private
sector circles and reposition the current tools for marketing tourists
hotspot.
For instance, let us look into new areas as well such as
documentaries that will be telecast in China's local channels using
their mother language. The Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC),
Director General, Mr Clement Mshana said last year they have televised
live the Serengeti great animal migration in collaboration with China
Central Television (CCTV) and the response was overwhelming.
But the director said since TBC is financially incapable of doing
many live telecast or documentaries they still need support from either
TANAPA, TTB or other stakeholders. Tourism marketing gurus argue that
print and electronic media and exhibitions are relatively good channels
of selling a destination to a targeted group than handout print-out
items and streets adverts.
They centre their argument that game viewing experience is widely
regarded as the best, so visualising them via telecast is also the best
as well.
Tanzania is blessed with unique natural and cultural attractions with
28 per cent of its land mass set aside as wild life areas, forests,
wetlands and protected land.
But without changing the modus operandi of concentrating on
traditional exhibitions, adverts and the like, Tanzania despite being
the preferred tourist destination in Africa, will continue to be the
second major economic power house in East Africa, after Kenya.
SOURCE; Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)
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