THE
Tanzania National Parks is gearing towards getting the International
Standards Organisation (ISO) certification for improved service
provision in its tourism division.
Speaking in an interview with the Tanzania
Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) television, the Director General for
TANAPA, Dr Allan Kijazi said the process to acquire ISO certification
has reached promising levels and that once National Parks gets this
accreditation, the country’s tourism industry profile will reach higher
levels.
TANAPA plans to record 1.03 million
tourists that are expected to visit its National Parks this year and
that in the course of next year, at least 1.14 million tourists will
sample the attractions. The institution contributes 37bn/- to the
national coffers from its tourism activities and targets to increase
this reach 45bn/- in the coming fiscal year 2018/19.
Tanzania receives around 1.4 million
tourists per annum, but 90 per cent of this traffic usually heads to the
well-known Northern Zone attractions of Serengeti National Park, Mount
Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro Crater.
The Tanzania National Parks itself
oversees a total of 16 Game Parks in the country but its cash cows are
mainly the Serengeti National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, Lake Manyara and
Tarangire National Parks.
To offset that dependency onto the
Northern Zoon Circuit, TANAPA has jumped onto the government’s bandwagon
to open up the Southern Circuit through the ‘Resilient Natural Resource
Management for Tourism and Growth (REGROW) Project.
Launched recently, the REGROW project
targets to strengthen the management of protected areas and promote
nature-based tourism in Southern Tanzania, in the tourism precinct known
as the ‘Southern Circuit’ and contribute to the diversification of
livelihoods in selected communities.
“We are starting with the aggressive
promotion of Ruaha, which is the country’s largest National Park; Mikumi
and Udzungwa Mountains,” explained Dr Kijazi. He assured that poaching
activities in his parks have almost disappeared and some of the existing
conflicts between members of the local communities and management of
National Parks are in the process of being solved amicably.
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