SafariLands.org: Tourism: Tourism and Development in Tanzania: Myths and Realities

The 1962 Tanganyika National Tourist Board Act was repealed with the introduction of the Tanzania Tourist Board Act 1992. This Act established the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB), whose function became that of promotion and development of all aspects of the tourist industry, i.e., advertising and publicizing Tanzania as a tourist destination; encouraging and developing amenities that would enhance the attractiveness of the country; undertaking research;
fostering an understanding of the importance and economic benefit of tourism to the country; and collecting and disseminating tourism information.

The government of Tanzania produced a Tourism Development Master Plan with the assistance of foreign private consultants and representatives of tour agents in 1996. The National Tourism Policy was revised in 1999, followed by the setting up of the Tourism Confederation of Tanzania (TCT) to represent the interests of the private sector.2 The Plan set out incentives and special benefits to companies based in neighboring countries and especially Kenya, and to overseas operators by providing tax holidays and exemptions and creating conditions for vertical integration of tourist activities under foreign control (Tanzania. Um'ted Republic of 2000).

It also provided additional incentives to foreign companies that could mobilize large investment packages and establish a dominant position in the industiy. Besides promotion of private investments, the policy provided a framework for environmental conservation (including the so-called participatory conservation methods) and consumer protection.

Being one of the economic activities covered under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), donor agencies (such as the European Union-EU) and International Financial Institutions (IFIs-including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund-IMF) anxiously provided technical and financial support to help develop and promote the sector. For the donor countries and IFIs, tourism had an important role to play as a powerful force in integrating countries such as Tanzania in the global economy; since any country that prioritized tourism as one of its major 'development' sectors had to accept and be willing to meet the expectations, needs and interests of tourists, multinational and transnational companies.

Henceforth, from policies that previously promoted agriculture and industry as the basis of social and economic development in the 1960s and 1970s, with agriculture being viewed as the "backbone", tourism was being promoted as one of the major engines of economic growth. Tourism, it was claimed, had become an industry that could offer an alternative to traditional export commodities (coffee, tea, cashew nut. cotton, sisal and cloves) dependency.

According to the policy papers, tourism had become one of the options to diversify the economy and supplement a declining agricultural sector; create jobs in both rural and urban areas: and, offer entrepreneurial opportunities for small and medium enterprises as well as community cooperatives. In promoting it, the country could earn the badly needed foreign exchange and the government could increase its tax revenues (Tanzania, United Republic of 2002: 7).
It was claimed that tourism is sector with significant linkages to other sectors such as agriculture, fishing, retailing and arts and crafts; and that it had economic spin-offs into other sectors such as communication, education, energy, construction and the general development of the infrastructure thereby benefiting the economy as a whole.

In the process this could lead to enhanced living standards, economic well-being and human, social and cultural development. Overall, the sector was elevated to an important position in policies geared towards "poverty alleviation" among women, youths, "indigenous people" and the poor in general. After all, donor countries such as Britain, Netherlands and Scandinavian ones had developed "Pro-Poor Tourism" strategies as an integral part of their foreign aid policies, Britain, for example, had set aside funds under its Tourism Challenge Fund for International Development (TCFID) to match grants for projects to develop business and employment opportunities in developing countries and strengthen positive social and cultural effects.

A Wildlife Policy was also introduced in 1998 aimed at clarifying land-use issues for communities as far as tourism purposes were concerned. The 1998 Policy adopted strategies that aimed at integrating rural development with wildlife conservation by establishing Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) on village lands as a means to effect Community-Based Conservation (CBC); promote legal use of wildlife and its products; introduce measures that would bring equitable sharing of revenue from tourist hunting to the rural communities; and, compel license dealers in wildlife based products to employ workers from areas where wildlife activities are conducted.

This paper analyses the social, economic and gender context under which tourism development is taking place and provides a critique of the potentials it has as a tool for development in Tanzania. Specifically, it aims at analyzing foreign investments in tourism and the fundamental relationship between social life of the populace and the social, economic, gender, cultural and political transformations taking place in areas where tourism has become a major activity.

Fundamental issues problematized are those related questions of overcoming exploitation and domination based on gender, class, race, age, and ethnicity. What finally becomes apparent is the fact that promotion of tourism as one of the globalizing elements and the edifice of the euphoria of globalization itself, are based on fetishized systems, which dehumanize and dissocialize relationships, and reinforces domination, oppression and inequalities. The paper is based on two case studies: The former Arusha Region (before division into Arusha and Manyara) and Bagamoyo District Coast region.

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