Beijing, — TANZANIA'S travel and tourism industry has high growth potential but snags are blocking the efforts, especially on tapping China market. Addressing that is of paramount importance.
The government has of late realised the importance of diversifying the tourism source markets -- and adopted the Think Asia strategy.
The goal here, aims to reduce the over-reliance on traditional markets, such as the UK and the US, which continue to experience the effects of economic recession.
Given the fact that tourism is now number two in contribution to the country's GDP, the Think Asia should be approached with all tools available to the sector to remain competitive and attractive.
The fruits of Think Asia have started to be seen. The latest data from China National Tourism Administration show that in the first two months of this year, China's tourist arrivals in Tanzania rose by 63 per cent.
In totality, last year, for instance, the number of China's tourists to Tanzania went up by 39.09 per cent to reach 16,100 visitors and and going by statistics the number are expected to increase by 40 per cent or 6,500 new tourists this year.
The estimation of the tourists from China was calculated under normal conditions 'ceteris paribus' laws. Therefore, if hiccups that block attraction of more tourists from the red dragon are addressed, the number may surpass the per cent projected.
The challenges, apart from direct air link Dar es Salaam-Beijing that locked out many to visit the three out of seven wonders of Africa, namely Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park and Mount Kilimanjaro, are not complex to sort out.
In short-term this lack of direct flight challenge could be addressed by organising an international charter plane from China to Tanzania.
What is needed is coordination from both authorities, stakeholders and travel agents. Tanzania's Ambassador to China, Lt Gen (rtd) Abdulrahman Shimbo acknowledged that this direct air link vacuum back-pedalled the efforts to attract more tourists from China.
However, he said, efforts were under-way to encourage Chinese Airline to open direct routes to Tanzania. This will in turn open and shorten the route to Dar.
China National Tourism Administration, Marketing and International Cooperation Department, Deputy Director-General, Mr Xiong Shanhua, said establishing of direct flight between Dar and Beijing will help boost the number of Chinese tourists to Tanzania.
"The number of China tourists is increasing enormously to the world (but) short supply of international airlines' seats to Tanzania cut down the number of outbounds," Mr Xiong said. Also, Mr Xiong, hit on the issuance of visa. He said authorities in Tanzania should considering on relaxing some regulations regarding tourist visa obtaining.
This alone barred some tourists to visit Tanzania. The Deputy Director-General said the Tanzania tourist marketers are not vigorously advertising the Chinese's specific favourite attractions in the country, like game park safaris, beaches, culture and historical places.
Other issues that need to be addressed immediately include tourist hotels to start offering Chinese cuisine and employ staff who could at least speak Mandarin as for the Chinese, French or English have little importance to them.
The hotel management schools should at least start offering Chinese language classes as some do for French and Portuguese as well. The good thing is that two Chinese Confucius Institutions are operating in Tanzania.
If banks, CRDB, Standard Chartered, and EcoBank have introduced China desks at their portfolios," including forex exchange to ATMs accepting UnionPay debit cards, what bars hoteliers, tour operators and the like to do the same for their respective businesses?
The government is playing its crucial part to promote Think Asia through its foreign missions and embassies in China, India and Russia, but the private sector is the one that lags behind. In that vein the modi operandi should change drastically, from government to private sector circles and reposition the current tools for marketing tourists hotspot.
For instance, let us look into new areas as well such as documentaries that will be telecast in China's local channels using their mother language. The Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), Director General, Mr Clement Mshana said last year they have televised live the Serengeti great animal migration in collaboration with China Central Television (CCTV) and the response was overwhelming.
But the director said since TBC is financially incapable of doing many live telecast or documentaries they still need support from either TANAPA, TTB or other stakeholders. Tourism marketing gurus argue that print and electronic media and exhibitions are relatively good channels of selling a destination to a targeted group than handout print-out items and streets adverts.
They centre their argument that game viewing experience is widely regarded as the best, so visualising them via telecast is also the best as well.
Tanzania is blessed with unique natural and cultural attractions with 28 per cent of its land mass set aside as wild life areas, forests, wetlands and protected land.
But without changing the modus operandi of concentrating on traditional exhibitions, adverts and the like, Tanzania despite being the preferred tourist destination in Africa, will continue to be the second major economic power house in East Africa, after Kenya.
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