President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday unveiled government's plan to make cultural festivals a means of making tourists spend more days in Tanzania, as the country seeks to diversify in tourism. The Head of State was upbeat that cultural festivals, being part of tourism packages, would make tourists extend their days of stay, thus boosting revenues from the sector.
She cited an example of China and Indonesia, where cultural tourism has been given a desirable importance and plays a key role in the growth of the two countries’ economy. In the Third National Five-year Development Plan (FYDP III), the government targets to increase tourism annual growth rate to 2 percent from the current 1,5 percent, and the number of tourists from the current 1,527,230 to 5,000,000 by 2025/2026.
The target is also to make an average number of nights spent by tourist from 13 to 14, while making the revenues climb to 6 billion US Dollars (about 13,9tri/-) from 2,6 billion US Dollars (about 6tri/-). Among the interventions include promoting new tourism products development and diversification for sustainable growth and promote southern tourist circuit as alternative to other circuits.
"Our tourism has focused on wild animals, this makes tourists visiting Tanzania to stay for a few days due to lack of diverse tourist attractions, so if we have these kinds of cultural festivals they may stay longer," President Samia stated when in Mwanza to officiate the opening of the Cultural Festival held in Mwanza. The event was attended by tribal chiefs from across the country under their umbrella Tanzania Chiefs Union "Umoja wa Machifu Tanzania" development projects.
"The aim is to make Mwanza city a commercial hub in the Great Lakes and be able to compete with our neighbours," she said. Again, she affirmed that she has already discussed and directed the Mwanza Regional Commissioner (RC), Engineer Robert Gabriel over the construction of modern markets, with enough space to accommodate all small scale traders. Earlier, at Buzuruga area, the RC assured President Samia that authorities in the region have been going out of their offices to meet and listen to citizens and address challenges they face.
"Conflicts solving is one of our top agendas. We admit that in the past we forgot that people needed modern markets, as a result we kept on chasing them away," he said. He promised the President that the region will strengthen revenue collections and fight against corruption, so as to bring development to 'Wananchi'.