Tourism

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Tourism investors in Mafia want marine park user fees reviewed

Posted: Wednesday July 22, 2009 11:35 PM BT

By Felix Andrew, Mafia

Tourism stakeholders in Mafia Island have urged the government to involve them in reviewing Marine Parks and Reserves user fee regulation which came into effect early this month. Speaking in Mafia Island at the weekend, they said the 2009 Marine Parks and Reserves user fees regulation, was introduced without adequate notice to the operators of the industry or cognisance of the current global economic crisis.

The entry fee has been doubled to USD20 per person from USD 10, which was charged previously.They said, the newly introduced fees in marine parks and reserves did not only affect tourists.

They also affected boat operators and sport fishing licencing within marine parks and reserves as well as permission to operate public services, such as restaurant, night camping, commercial filming and trading in marine resources.

Currently, the minimum fee is USD20 per day, while the maximum is USD1, 500 per month, normally charged to hotels. This is besides the normal taxes and other fees paid for permits and licences.
"This is not only unreasonable but also unlawful because charges totally ignore the legally prescribed procedure," said Dr Jean de Villiers.

Peter Byrne, a hotel owner said the new user fees regulation was introduced in a manner that was also clearly contrary to the well publicised government policies and the Prime Minister's guidelines entitled "Principles of Good Regulation".

He added that they also directly contradicted President Jakaya Kikwete's recent pronouncement where he said: "His government is taking serious measures to rescue the tourism sector, which has registered a sharp drop in tourist arrivals due to the global economic downturn".

Francesca Bensa, another stakeholder in tourism said the concession fees were without consideration of the current global economic climate or size of business, or even business turnover, Mafia Island Marine Park Advisory Committee representative Anne de Villiers speaking said an official task force, created by the Marine Parks and Reserves board to investigate funding options for Tanzanian Marine Parks and Reserves in 2008, made substantially different recommendations to the board. She said this was after limited consultation of stakeholders that however did not include a single hotel owner in Mafia Island Marine Park or the Advisory Committee.

"These sensible recommendations of the task force were essentially ignored by Marine Parks and Reserves Unit and Board of Trustees, which made radical changes to the task force report.

Notably the task force stressed that further stakeholder consultation was essential but this was never done," she said.

She expressed her concerns that to pay the concessions imposed in the gazetted regulation would lead to most tourism businesses in the island marine park to close down, "and it is inescapable that all will have to lay off staff to reduce overheads".

She said that most hoteliers, including her, first heard of the new regulation only in June, less than one month before it was set to be implemented. This, she said was causing many customer cancellations and loss of business.

For his part, Moez Kassim, worries that the new fees regulation will harm all of Mafia, not just the tourism sector where he has investments.

However, a press statement issued at the weekend by hotel investors here said tourism investors in Mafia, strongly supported marine conservation in the island and especially within the MIMP, and fully understood that "effective marine conservation comes at a cost that cannot be carried by the Tanzanian government alone".

Tourism business in Mafia Island is still low because poor infrastructure renders it difficult to reach the island, besides the fact that the place is still not well known internationally.

In eastern Africa alone, Mafia competes directly with Zanzibar, Pemba, Kenya, Mozambique, Seychelles, Comoros and Madagascar, all of which have similar marine resources and access to similar terrestrial resources.

All tourist destinations currently offer significant discounts and incentives in an effort to attract the few visitors touring the place.

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