The Chinese tourist market is on top among other Asian markets which Tanzania is struggling to attract.

Diversification of tourist visiting sites is currently the strategy which Tanzania is focusing on through the opening of lesser-known areas on the coast and in the southern and western areas which are rich with historical and wildlife resources.

Marketing of Tanzania’s tourism would mostly be directed to capture new non-traditional markets including China, South Korea, Brazil, Qatar, Oman, and other African states.

Tanzania aims to attract 5 million tourists from next year to gain about US$6 billion against the current 2 million tourists who spent about US$3.6 billion as of the end of March of this year.

Sports is the other tourist product which Tanzania is targeting through the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2027 tournament, taking advantage of the big number of foreign visitors expected to land in East Africa for the football matches.

Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Ms. Angellah Kairuki said the government had targeted sports to be the other source that would attract international tourists to spend their holiday in Tanzania in addition to the popular wildlife safaris.

She said that football matches attract more people than other sports globally, so Tanzania wanted to attract more football fans. She said:

“The Ministry has planned to broaden its promotion of tourism within and outside Tanzania through popular sports leagues and competitions to attract more tourists.”

Tanzania is currently constructing a 30,000-seat capacity stadium in the northern tourist city of Arusha partly for the 2027 AFCON finals, while targeting sports and tourism development in Northern Tanzania.

“We will continue to participate in exhibitions and tourism events to promote our tourist attractions through international airlines including Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Turkish Airlines,” the minister said.

Other priorities were development of strategic tourism products including historical sites, beach tourism, conferences and events tourism, cruise ship and marine tourism, as well as health and cultural tourism.

This also includes the less developed tourist attractive sites and new wildlife safari destinations in Tanzania including the less developed wildlife parks located in Southern Highlands and Western Tanzania. These include Ruaha, Katavi, Nyerere, and Mahale national parks.

Development of tourism in Western Tanzania would entail rehabilitation of roads and transport infrastructure, development of tourists’ accommodation sites which includes camping sites in western parks including Gombe and Mahale chimpanzee parks.

Gombe and Mahale National Parks in Western Tanzania are famous for Chimpanzee communities, sharing ecological resources including Lake Tanganyika water resources with Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda.