It was only a matter of time that East Africa’s tourism jewel, Tanzania reached its milestone tourist visits record of over 1 million in 2012 from 867 000 in 2011, a 24 percent increase according to Khamis Kagasheki, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism.
Tourism is an important source of income for the East African nation and the National Parks itself drew in a revenue of 65.7 million USD by March with up to 750 797 tourists visiting Tanzania for that period alone.
Tanzania Ngorongoro Conservation Area received 507 984 international tourists by the year end, earning nearly 30 million USD.
The milestone increase to more than 1 million tourists visiting Tanzania resulted from the country upgrading its accommodation facilities and infrastructure that better hosts the country’s tourism enthusiasts.
Minister Khamis Kagasheki said “This success story is a result of a number of things including improving road infrastructures in the parks, whereby the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa) managed to rehabilitate about 6,526.5 km in different parks across the country”.
“As government, our role is to market Tanzania outside the world, and the private sector is to invest more in building world-class hotels to meet the country’s demand of beds. This would attract more tourists to come into the country which has a wide range of tourist products compared to any other in the East African region” he added.
He also revealed that the government is ranking hotels in Tanzania. Out of the 17 accommodation in Manyara region involved, 2 are ranked Four Star, 11 Three Star accommodation and 4 Two Star facilities.
