Exploit our local tourism potential

source;the guardian 7th jan 2010

The start of the New Year brought with it interesting developments for our country.

We read a very interesting report about hundreds of Kenyan tourists choosing the country's northern tourism circuit as their destination to celebrate the season’s holidays.

This is indeed a very interesting development considering that Kenya boasts a very well developed infrastructure of beach and wildlife tourism, attracting millions of tourists, both local and foreign.

The tourists were apparently attracted by the incentives announced by the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) recently directing all Chief Park Wardens to treat equally all the East African Community residents intending to discover nature into the wild teeming with all sorts of animal and captivating scenery.

The offer allows Burundians, Kenyans, Rwandese, Ugandans and Tanzanians to enter any of the the country’s national parks after paying 1,500/- each for adults and 500/- each for a child per day at the gates.

Not only did the Kenyans take advantage of the offer, but were delighted by what they discovered and showered praise on Tanzania's wildlife attractions.

One of the Kenyan groups which visited Ngorongoro crater, admitted that the group had fallen in love with the crater and promised to market it to Kenyans.

And therein lies the secret key to success in boosting this sector, which has been hard hit by the global economic crunch because of its almost total reliance on tourists from outside Africa.

The park authorities must promote the attractions more vigorously, creating packages that will make it worth the time of local and regional tourists to visit and view animals and nature.

But most importantly, the park authorities must listen carefully to the feedback they get from our neighbours who have visited the parks.

For to be fair, not all have praises for Tanzania's tourist attractions. Indeed, there have been some observations, about deficiencies in the sector, which we believe mean well and should be acted upon by the authorities.

The authorities must be swift in taking corrective action where it is due as the way forward in improving their marketability.

One such call relates to too much bureaucracy at entry points, which may push away the ordinary tourist, who feels suffocated by the requirement to fill several forms.

Surely the authorities can find a way of simplifying the procedures given that we are now in the digital age.

This is one of the several challenges that the national park authorities must overcome this year if the industry is to recover from the effects of the crunch soon, but more importantly embark on nurturing its nascent local clients base.

For the industry is sitting in the middle of a robust and flamboyant East African market with nearly 130 million consumers and a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of nearly US$60bn.

All said however, the start has been positive and if well exploited, is set to change the way we view the potential, not only of East Africa, but the whole continent in making the travel and tourism industry one of its main engines of economic growth.