TOURISM TOPS TANZANIA'S FOREIGN EXCHANGE EARNINGS

TANZANIA tourism industry continues to be the largest foreign exchange earner after gold incomes fell significantly as a result of lower world prices for the commodity.

The Central Bank said in its latest monthly economic reviews that earnings from the sector increased by 12.3 per cent to US $ 1.972 billion in the year ending June 2014 from US$ 1.757 billion from the previous period.

Gold is still leading among the nontraditional exports although its dominance is steadily declining due to global price fall. Its exports in the period under review can be calculated to about US $ 1.6 billion.

Its share in non-traditional exports which reached US $ 4.05 billion during the period under review fell to 41.0 per cent from 49.0 per cent recorded in the preceding year, according to the BoT report.

Tourism was the top foreign exchange earner for 2013 after overtaking gold whose performance was undermined by low output and a decline in global price. According to Bank of Tanzania (BoT) previous reports, foreign exchange earnings from tourism for 2013 reached US$ 1.88 billion up from US$ 1.7 billion in 2012 and US$ 1.35 billion in 2011.

The reports show gold earnings had declined in 2013 due to a fall in export volume and global price. Africa's fourth-largest gold producer earned $1.73 billion in 2013 from the precious metal, down from $2.11 billion a year before. The decline in global price for gold last year is attributed to India's action to restrict importation of gold in efforts to control its current account deficit.

The government is conducting strong marketing drive of Tanzania's profile as a leading tourist destination in East African region concentrating on Europe and America that has been the main source of tourists arrivals.

It has also diversified the source market to focus into Far East named in the World Travel Trends Report of 2013/2014 as the world's travel hotspots in 2013 mainly driven by China's strong economic growth The country registered a 1.73 per cent increase of arrivals to 1,095,884 people in 2013 from 1,077,058 in 2012, according to Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB).

The board said in a statement recently that the country registered a seven per cent increase in visitors from the US up from 65,110 in 2012 to 69,671 in 2013, making the USA Tanzania's second largest tourism source market worldwide.

The North American market as a whole (Canada, Mexico, United States) showed an increase of 7.3 per cent from 84,639 in 2012 to 90,819 in 2013.

The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Lazaro Nyalandu, is quoted in the statement as saying the increase in tourism could be attributed to several factors including increased airlift from the US,the greatly improved infrastructure and Tanzania's new luxury accommodations which have attracted a growing number of celebrities and Hollywood Alisters like Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

The country is hosting Real Madrid legends who played with their counterparts in Dar es Salaam last Saturday. The football legends were expected to visit the country's high profile tourist sites, especially the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Mount Kilimanjaro.

According to the organisers the overall goal of the tour is to boost the country's tourism profile and stimulate football talent development in the country.