Dar plans to boost tourism earnings

Correspondent PIUS RUGONZIBWA in Mwanza

THE government has expressed zero tolerance on saboteurs in the tourism sector as it plans to ramp up its contribution to the economy.

The Natural Resources and Tourism Deputy Minister Mr Ramo Makani said here last week that the government was determined to increase tourism contribution to the national development in
conformity to key highlighted targets.
He mentioned them as improving the overall performance of the sector focusing on strategic areas that will serve to further diversify the country’s offerings culminating into an increase in jobs as well as contributing into growth of other sectors.
“The Ministry has now embarked on formulating a new policy that will also see to it that this sector seriously works to increase the number of both international and domestic tourists, average number of nights spent per night by tourists, and average expenditure per tourist per day,” he said.
According to the Five Years Development Plan 2016-2021 for the sector, tourism is anticipated to grow by 6.2 per cent then, raise the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) share up to 18.3 per cent and share of total export to 21.4 percent as well as employment by at least 12 per cent
. The Deputy Minister remained optimistic though that the deliberations on Sustainable Tourism Development and ongoing stakeholders’ workshops on the review of the Tourism Policy was vital and will add much value to the achievement of the envisaged key targets for the sector.
Mr Makani underlined on the importance of the new policy that will ensure all players are well incorporated particularly the private sector while keenly observing the creation of business opportunities, investment on people and human capital, embracing technological advancements and improving competitiveness of the country’s tourism products.
However, the workshop raised an alarm on a number of bottlenecks that were likely to keep on affecting the sector even if the policy is reviewed mentioning some as multiplicity of taxes, ineffective Tourism Act of 2008, multiplicity of regulatory agencies and generally poor investment environment
. A consultant from the University of Dar es Salaam Prof Raphael Mwalyosi advised for more funding to the organs tasked to promote tourism citing poor allocation of resources to the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) which in his view should be empowered financially to undertake its objectives effectively.
“In 2015 the country attracted 1,137,182 tourists who injected 1.9bn Us Dollars (about 4tln/-) but with more promotional strategies, open and stable policies and strong regulatory bodies the country was likely to garner remarkably from the sector,” he said.
Apart from local, regional, continental and global linkages, stakeholders challenged for the establishment of the special curriculums in schools where education on tourism and hospitality industry will be taught from the grassroots level.
Other critical areas the revised policy should look at include the restrictive regulations that have for many years prevented participation of domestic enterprises, nonexistent of specific incentives for promoting Small and Medium Enterprises and lack of skill development initiatives and controversial tourism development levies among others.