While the government of Tanzania is struggling to see that the number of tourists in the country is doubled by 2015, the United Nations still insist that Africa’s share of International Tourists Arrival is only about 5.2 %. According to Mr. Frederic Pierret who is the Executive Director of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, if there are about five million tourists crossing borders daily across the world, that means that the number of international tourists will reach 1.6 billion by 2020 so he said.
Mr. Pierret said so during his speech in the on-going First Pan-African Conference on “Sustainable Tourism Management in African National Parks and Protected Areas which is held in Arusha. The Executive Director mentioned that UNWTO is anticipating a growth of about 50% in Africa’s tourists’ arrivals in the coming years, during which the continent stands to log 134 million travelers per year – a massive increase from the current 50 million visitors.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lazaro Nyalandu who is the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism said prior to the meeting that Tanzania hopes to attract over 1.6 million tourists by 2015 therefore doubling the current numbers of 800,000 visitors in a year with the country’s abundant natural resources and wildlife as the most selling attraction given the fact that there are over 16 National Parks, the highest mountain in Africa and the Ngorongoro Crater which is the only Volcanic Crater in the world with large numbers of wildlife. Basing on the information from the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB), over 70% of tourists who visit Tanzania do go for game viewing drives in national parks and more 80% of the total number of foreign leisure travelers are interested in sampling the different attractions found in the Northern Tourism Circuit.
The Northern Zone is home to Mount Kilimanjaro; Africa’s highest peak, Ngorongoro Crater, the legendary Serengeti migrations, Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks. The conference delegations will be touring Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire National Park later this week, to see for themselves how Tanzania is conducting its nature and wildlife conservation in harmony with surrounding communities.
At the same time, Vice-President Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal has asked all the responsible people to work together towards conserving and protecting local natural resources and wildlife. While opening up the first “Pan-African Conference on Sustainable Tourism Management in National Parks and Protected Areas, he emphasized that now is the time for collective effort and team work if the country is to achieve its goals.
