Recalling that such a similar remarkable incident happened in the late 1990s involving the bombing of the US embassy in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, TTB Principal Public Relations Officer, Geofrey Tengeneza told this paper that, the tourism sector dropped during the period because many foreigners developed fear for their safety.
“The Westgate attack and other related al-shabaab invasions are the main challenge to the tourism industry in the region at the moment. Because we all find ourselves in this part of the continent, foreigners refer us as one people,” he said,
He added that 40 to 50 percent of tourists come to Tanzania through Kenya, so if terrorism persists it might drag the sector down.
However, Tengeneza told The Guardian in an exclusive interview that so far the industry has been doing well for the past 10 years save for the years 2000 and 2009 when the world experienced financial crisis.
The number of tourists went up from 782, 699 in 2010 earning the country USD1.3m, while in 2011 the figure rose to 867,994 travellers raking in over USD1.3m in revenue, he said,
In the following year the number of tourists reached 1,077,055 which was an increase of 24 percent, the highest figure ever to happen in the country and the government collected USD1.7m.
Tengeneza further said that despite of the existing fear in the neighbouring countries, TTB is looking forward to strengthen its strategies including preparing a big international exhibition to be dubbed ‘The International Tourism Expo’ in October where a number of countries will be invited.
This is expected to be one of the biggest tourism expos in Africa. So far there are only three biggest expo in the world including the World Travel Market (WTM) in England, Internationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) in Germany (the world’s largest tourism trade fair) and Indaba in South Africa, which is currently the biggest expo on the continent, he said.
“So we target ours to be the second largest,” he said.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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