Tourism

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Local tourism doubles, despite global crunch

Posted: Thursday July 23, 2009 12:33 PM BT

By Beatrice Philemon

Despite the prevalence of the global financial crisis, the number of local tourists visiting tourist attractions in the country has grown by more than 90 per cent, it has been learnt.

Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) senior information officer Geofrey Tengeneza, said on Tuesday that this was a result of the efforts made by Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in collaboration with the board to encourage people to visit local tourist attractions.

The number of local tourists has risen from 350,000 to 650,000 following a promotion campaign in the learning institutions to have the scholars tour the local tourist attractions.

"We decided to conduct the tourism promotional campaign in the institutions of learning because many of its subjects would in the eventual analysis help stimulate local tourism to the much wider country members in the future," he said.

The programme is aimed to give them clear information on the tourist attractions that the country has so as to enable people build a culture of visiting tourist attractions.

"The information that we provide to them will make them to be specialists of Tanzania as a destination thus help attract more travelers to Tanzania," he said.

But alternatively, this would help provide education on tourist attractions to the younger generation, he said.
He said the promotional campaign has been going on in two regions only Dar es Salaam and Lindi, adding that after the board had seen the efficacious results, it was now planning a countrywide move.

"During the campaign we have showed to them what we have in Tanzania, in terms of tourist attractions and culture," he said.

He said, TTB, in collaboration with the ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources have decided to promote cultural tourism because many people are willing to receive tourists and sale what they think they could avail in terms of tourism products.

He said in promoting domestic tourism they distribute CDs, DVDs, brochures and other promotional materials to the local people and displayed them in various tourism fairs.

Tourism is currently an important money spinner in Tanzania, providing 16 per cent to the GDP, besides foreign exchange, employment and public revenue.

Also it is potentially one of the world's fastest growing sectors and so far it is one of the top five sources of foreign currency for 83 per cent of developing countries.

The contribution of tourism receipts to total revenue in those countries is within the range of 8 to 20 percent.

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