Despite a tough tax regime, infrastructural constraints and local
tourism firms recording a slowdown in business, the Bank of Tanzania
(BoT) confirmed in a new report issued yesterday that tourism continues
to be the country’s biggest source of foreign exchange at present,
easily outperforming the mining and manufacturing sectors.
Tourism revenues soared 11 per cent in 2015 on the back of higher
tourist numbers, the central bank said in its latest monthly economic
review. Although the official tourist arrival figures for the year have
yet to be publicly released, records show that a total of 1.14 million
tourists visited the country in 2014, up from 1.095 million the previous
year.
In comparison, gold exports fetched $1.27 billion in 2015, marking
a continued downward spiral of income from the once-booming mining
sector due to a fall in global prices of the precious metal and
declining production by local mines.
However, when contacted for comment by The Guardian, some local
tourism industry stakeholders questioned the accuracy of the BoT’s
latest tourism revenue figures, saying they do not reflect the actual
situation in the country.
“We are surprised that the numbers show an increase, as our
preliminary figures indicate this growth trend may have been broken and
may even be down,” said the chief executive officer of the Hotel
Association of Tanzania (HAT), Lathifa Sykes.
She added: “I say this based on figures from the Serengeti
National Park and Ruaha National Park, where there was a 20 to 30 per
cent decline in (tourism) arrivals last year.”
Tanzania has in the past had to play second-fiddle to Kenya, which
has a more developed tourism industry and better air links to key
client markets in Europe and United States. But the surge in visitors to
Tanzania over the past three years has chipped away at Kenya’s
dominance and boosted Tanzania’s ambitions to become the regional
tourist hub.
Frequent attacks by Somali militants have also hit Kenyan tourism
hard, scaring away tourists, some of whom headed down to Tanzania for
similar tropical beaches and wildlife safaris. Kenya’s official tourist
numbers slid in 2013 to 1.5 million after an all-time peak of 1.8
million in 2011, although tourists still favour the Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport in Nairobi as their natural starting point when
flying into the region.
But according to Sykes, despite the fact that Tanzania has been
targeting low-volume and high-yield tourism as opposed to Kenya’s mass
tourism, the local industry is still lagging behind due to other factors
like a discouraging tax regime and various infrastructural
shortcomings.
The HAT boss said a multiplicity of related taxes made Tanzania a
more expensive tourism destination compared to Kenya or South Africa
because of the costs being passed on to tourists. “There are a total of
53 different taxes, levies and charges that are applicable to tourist
companies in Tanzania. The average effective tax rate for businesses in
the tourism sector is 48 per cent, ranging between 37 and 63 per cent,”
Sykes revealed.
The managing director of Kibo Guides (Tanzania) Ltd and Tanganyika
Wilderness Camps, Willy Chambulo, suggested that the BoT tourism revenue
figures may have been “cooked up” by government officials or the media.
“The fact is, 2015 was a disastrous year for Tanzanian tourism. Our
company’s business went down by 21 per cent… and we are among the top
five tourist companies in the country,” Chambulo said, noting that local
airlines also experienced a slump of about 19 to 20 per cent in
business last year.
“Political instability, especially within East Africa, poses a (further) threat for tourism in 2016,” Chambulo predicted.
But Yosia Mchome, a reservation agent with Zara Tours in Arusha,
and Pascal Shelutete, corporate communications manager of the state-run
Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), offered different views, both
asserting that the outlook for local tourism this year looks “promising”
despite some internal and external risks.
“The year 2015 was a turbulent one because of the terror attacks
in Kenya and the Ebola outbreak the previous year, which saw many
flights cancelled. We expect to receive more tourists this year, though
it is too early to forecast anything,” Mchome said.
Shelutete echoed this, saying the future for tourism would also
depend on the issue of security in the country. “We have our fingers
crossed, hoping that nothing bad happens in Zanzibar (politics-wise),”
the TANAPA official said.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
