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Tanapa to introduce night game viewing
By Pius Rugonzibwa

The Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) will soon introduce night game viewing, as another attraction to woo more tourists into the country's national parks, both local and foreign.Officials at the TANAPA said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the arrangement was already on trial at the Manyara National Park and will soon be implemented in other 14 national parks.

According to TANAPA, the strategy is among the several others in the pipeline that aim at boosting the tourism industry. The sector has been badly hit by the world economic downturn.

One of the exhibitors at the TANAPA pavilion, Dr. Tutus Mlengeya, said the system is already in use in other countries. He said the new arrangement especially aims at attracting more low volume tourists as well as local tourists.

He said the tourism sector in the country was now struggling to recover from the effects of the financial recession which has seen the sector losing nearly 50 per cent of low volume tourists, thanks to the recent decision by President Jakaya Kikwete to reduce visas fees for foreign visitors.

"We are highly optimistic that reduction of visas charge, from 100 US dollars to 50 US dollars will encourage more visitors to flow in although it is still too early to predict that," said the authority's Public Relations: Manager, Mr. Pascal Shelutete.

According to Dr. Mlengeya, other strategies include the construction of modern hotels in the parks as per authority's general management plan and investing more on the Ruaha National Park, recently pronounced the second largest park in Africa. The largest is Kruger Game Reserve in South Africa.

On Mount Kilimanjaro, he said efforts were going on to advertise Africa's highest mountain which before the recession was attracting about 42,000 tourists out of more than 650,000 tourists visiting the authorities' attractions every year.

TANAPA will also keep on advertising the country's tourist attractions, including Mount Kilimanjaro, to international media outlets like the CNN
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