The function was held in Arusha city yesterday Monday and Africa’s new ‘Seven Wonders of Nature,’ were officially announced to rest of the world. There were about 12 entries from all around the continent have been competing for this and Tanzania had fielded its own top three tourist attractions that included Ngorongoro Crater, the annual Wildebeest Migration of Serengeti as well as the Mount Kilimanjaro.
Other competitors included the Zuma Rock of Nigeria, Okavango Delta of Botswana, the ‘Peak of Furnace’ in the Reunion Island, the ‘Aldabra Atoll’ of Seychelles, ‘Tsingy Debemaraha,’ of Madagascar and the ‘Avenue of Baobabs’ also found in Madascar. According to Mr. Geoffrey Tengeneza, the Public Relations Officer for the Tanzania Tourist Board, they expected at least two of them, if not all the three to win the ‘New Seven Wonders. The function was graced by the Prime Minister, Mr. Mizengo Pinda at the new Mount Meru Hotel.
The three natural features competing with the likes of ‘Sahara Desert,’ encompassing over ten countries in Northern Africa, ‘Mount Kenya,’ in the neighboring country and the ‘Red Sea Reef’ (Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea).
In the past, there is been a problem of poor voting from the country and this caused Mt Kilimanjaro to fail in the other global event of the ‘New Seven Wonders of Nature and this was during the campaigns that ran between 2009 and 2011 where the Table Mountain of South Africa became the only feature from Africa that was in the finals. This is different, because even considering the number of visitors Ngorongoro Crater seems to be more famous attracting over 500,000 tourists per annum. It is followed by Serengeti with 350,000 visitors in a year and then Mount Kilimanjaro attracts nearly 55,000 tourists per annum.
Tanzania as a country attracts around 1.2 million tourists per year with more than 80% of these ending up in the Northern Circuit where the three features are found. The Ngorongoro Crater is under the management of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) while both the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro are under the management of the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA).
