Tanzania tourist arrivals reach 1 million mark

(eTN) DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania – Seen as a highest figure of tourist arrivals in Tanzania’s tourism ever achieved in past years, the number of tourists who visited Tanzania last year touched a million-plus and put this African country among leading destinations in Africa.

Debating the annual budget for his ministry in the ongoing parliamentary session, the Tanzanian Tourism Minister Mr. Khamis Kagasheki said number of tourists that visited Tanzania in 2011 increased from 867,994 the same year to 1,077, 058 last year (2012), a significant rise of 24 percent.

He said most tourists were recorded to have visited nature based wildlife conservation areas made up of 15 protected National Parks, Ngorongoro Crater and Game Reserves.

Some key tourist assets and attractions which represent Tanzania’s tourism are the Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Serengeti National Park, which boasts over five million big African mammals.

The just released number of tourists quoted to have visited Tanzania last year, would so far, place this country on the map of leading African safari destinations with a million-plus visitors per year.

Other tourist competitive African destinations, rich with wildlife resources and which have a high record of tourists reaching a million or above this figure are Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa.

South Africa is leading among other African countries with the highest number of tourists, with a recorded number of 9.2 million tourists visited its tourist attractions last year (2012).

Looking to attract more tourists, Tanzania has created a new marketing plan that would lure more tourists to its wildlife and other visitor sites.

The plan focuses on marketing and promotion campaigns, using and applying electronic marketing (E-marketing) through online news, social media and other online media outlets.

In their views, members of parliament and other tourist business stakeholders wanted the Tanzanian government to set adequate funds for tourism advertising and marketing in key market sources of Europe, the United States, and Asia, while new and emerging markets of China, Russia, Brazil, and Far Eastern states were left untouched.

They argued that inadequate marketing funding had so far denied Tanzania more tourists and wanted the Tanzanian government to re-brand a destination campaign and create a tourist development levy as an option to raise more funds for the marketing institution, the Tanzania Tourist Board.

The members of parliament also advised the government of Tanzania to make tourism a priority area and allocate enough funds for advertising in order to beat the ongoing competition from other African countries, while looking at a quick possibility to open tourist marketing offices in some European countries, which have high tourist numbers, also to explore the emerging markets of China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil.