AfricaPress-Tanzania: The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and the Ministry of Works and Transport are required to sit down with major airlines and international airlines to see how best to increase the number of tourists in the country.
The aim is to sit together and discuss the challenges and remove them to increase the number of tourists visiting the country to five million by 2025.
The Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr. Damas Ndumbaro said this while closing a four-day meeting that ended yesterday in Morogoro for tourism stakeholders to discuss how to increase the number of tourists and income from tourism activities in the country.
Stakeholders who participated in the conference included tourist hunting agents, tour operators, tour guides and airline agents, accommodation providers, aviation and shipping stakeholders.
He said it was time for his ministry and the Ministry of Works and Transport to sit down with major airlines such as Ethiopian Airline, KLM, Swiss Air, Fly Dubai, Qatar Airways to achieve their goals of increasing the number of tourists in the country.
The minister said tourism is a major contributor to the national economy and the sector contributes 17 percent of GDP where combined with the Forest Sector it reaches 22 percent.
However, he commended the Tanzania Aircraft Owners Association (TAOA) for the significant contribution they make to the country’s economy, especially in the tourism sector.
“Let me ask our Transport colleagues to look at Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) with a unique eye, we the people of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism are trying to figure out how we can make KIA a” Special Tourists Free Zone, “he said.
The minister also urged his ministry’s experts to consider the issue of the Tourist Service Providers’ License (TALA) in the Natural Resources and Tourism sector, that there are things that must be considered as they affect the economy, service providers should not be punished by adding unnecessary levies.
Dr Ndumbaro said due to President John Magufuli not closing the country’s borders in 2020 due to Covid-19 disease, the tourism industry received more than 600,000 tourists.
“This is the time to inform those who are locked up, let us inform them that we have the Serengeti, we have Mikumi National Park, Nyerere, Tarangire and many others,” he noted.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr. Allan Kijazi said the Manifesto of the Revolutionary Party (CCM) for the year 2020-2025 has given the ministry the responsibility to increase revenue to Shs 6 billion and the number of tourists to five million by year 2025.
“These are major responsibilities that the Ministry needs to work with stakeholders to achieve this goal, we are confident together we will be able to implement and fulfill the goal set” he said.
