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A plan seeking to revive tourism in East Africa has been approved, following the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the sector.

Dubbed ‘The EAC Regional COVID-19 Tourism Recovery Plan’, the map was approved by the East African Community Sectoral Council led by Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, Najib Balala.

Tourism ministers from the East Africa Community noted that some partner states had already instituted measures such as the formulation of stimulus packages aimed at re-igniting the sector and supporting tourism investments including the Small and Micro Enterprises.

In his opening remarks, Balala underscored the importance of the Partner States working together especially in addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sector and in joint tourism recovery efforts.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught all of some really important lessons. For instance, domestic and regional tourism markets are really important and they can help in making …

Covid 19 wreaked havoc to the economy and no sector was worse hit than the tourism and hospitality sector. Air travel restrictions, mandatory quarantine of arrivals and the shutting of businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors along with crumple of demand have led to an unprecedented shock.

So bad was the situation that last year, tourism operators in Tanzania forecast revenue contractions of 80% or more while the World Bank’s 14th Tanzania Economic Update (TEU) showed that Tanzania’s economic growth slowed down to 2.5% from the 6.9% growth reported the previous year. (santacruzcore.com)

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, with eased travel restrictions, Tanzania is witnessing a revamp in both the tourism and hospitality sectors. Global top brands like Onomo Hotels have opened shop in the commercial capitol Dar es Salaam.

MarkMeet ONOMO General Manager Mark Soderlund as he gives us an inside …

 

Tanzania has earned a record $3 billion from gold sales as price for the precious metal soars in the world market.

Publicized by the Bank of Tanzania, the value of gold exports clocked $3.025 billion in the year ending March 31, 2021, a considerable jump from $2.324 billion that was earned last year.

In fact, gold is doing so well that it has become the country’s top foreign exchange earner, and even overtaken tourism.

Gold prices have been edging up since the corona outbreak last year owing to jittery investors fearing a collapse of other currencies (including the dollar) and opting to store their value in gold.

“As financial markets were hit by the pandemic, investors rushed for gold which they consider as one of the safe haven assets,” report local media.

Consider this, gold represented more than half (55.9 percent) of the value brought home from sell of …

The Kilimanjaro mountain scape, Serengeti fascinating landscape, the Ngorongoro conservation magical experience and the spice island exuberant moments in Zanzibar are just a few joyous tourist experiences, one can acquire in real-time when visiting Tanzania.

Nevertheless, this magnificent reality is a product of hard labour and constant update of policies, laws and modus operandi of the tourism industry in Tanzania.

However, over the past couple of years, the competition has spiced up pretty hard and other players are coming into the fold, naming two: Rwanda with its stunning hills scenery—investing millions of dollars to brand their industry (Visit Rwanda) and Uganda’s game viewing.

To say the least, Tanzania has competitors across the East African Community, and it is great—in the name of developing healthy economic pillars, which are driven by sustainable mechanisms to preserve natural resources and unify our regional economies.

The Tanzanian tourism sector contributes nearly 17.5 per cent …

Egypt’s tourism revenues fell by 67.2% due to COVID-19 in 2020 after recording $13 billion in 2019 when Egypt received 13 million international tourists; in 2020 it received 9.5 million. 

Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities minister Khaled Al-Anani said, “We witnessed a great year in 2019 in terms of numbers and revenues, and the first two months in 2020 were 8% higher, with 2.4 million tourists. The goal now is not to measure the number of tourists, but to say Egypt is a safe tourist destination even amid the coronavirus crisis.” 

He added that a total of 65% of tourists in 2020 did so in January and February.  

 

 

With the outbreak in March, Egypt closed its hotels but reopened them after two months with about 25% maximum occupancy later increasing it to 50%

The Tanzanian central bank (Bank of Tanzania – BoT) published a detailed economic bulletin for the quarter ending September 2020, which showed Zanzibar’s economy taking a nosedive contracting by 2 per cent compared to a growth rate of 5.2 per cent in the corresponding quarter in 2019.

Zanzibar—the semi-autonomous region of Tanzania, is taking various measures to enhance economic and trade liberalization that can pave a smooth way for the private sector to get engaged in the local, regional and international arena.…

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The South African government last week announced a resumption in international visitors to the country amid a COVID- 19 infection reality. 

Earlier this year, South Africa, like many other countries, shut itself out from the world to control the spread of COVID within its borders. It immediately implemented local lockdowns which have been gradually lifted in different phases. 

Authorities had initially indicated that international borders were billed to be opened in February 2021. The country has, however, given the green light to international visitors in order to stimulate a faltering tourism sector.

Initially, borders were opened on October 1 but excluded visitors from many countries that were classified as high risk. 

Last week, the government updated its travel restrictions alert, opening up entry to all countries.

The opening up of borders is aimed at arousing the tourism sector in South Africa which contributes significantly to GDP. It has been

The hospitality and tourism industry

The hospitality and tourism industry in sub-Saharan Africa must adopt a new “adapt and innovate” modus operandi to meet the challenges produced by the COVID-19 pandemic if it is to help prevent further contraction of severely impacted economies in the region, says Mark Havercroft, Regional Director Africa for the International hotel group Minor Hotels.

While the opening of international borders by several African countries is extremely positive news for ailing travel and hospital sectors in sub-Saharan Africa – and for economies as a whole, this may not, in and of itself, be sufficient to resuscitate the industry in the wake of the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Not only are many of the international tourists who operators are relying on to return quickly still locked down in their own countries, but even if they’re not, there are still very high levels of insecurity around …

The elephant population in Tanzania has increased from 43,330 in 2014 to over 60,000 this year. The government attributes the increase to crackdown on poaching syndicates.

A key figure in the poaching and black market trade of ivory, was arrested denting the industry greatly. Christened, the “Ivory Queen” Yang Fenglan, a prominent Chinese businesswoman was last year sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.

However, by time of her arrest, it is estimated she alone was responsible for the smuggling numerous tones of ivory to China. Yang was tried and found guilty of operating one of Africa’s biggest ivory-smuggling rings. By the of her arrest, she is said to have been responsible for smuggling ivory worth over USD2.5m. That value is estimated to have been derived from the slaughter of almost 400 elephants.

Following her arrest, activists suffered a great lose with the murder of Roger Gower in 2016. …

When rich folks want to climb to the highest peak of Africa, they no longer have to scrimmage with the rest of us along the old narrow foot tracks, no, they now have an exclusive route cut just for Very Important People (VIP).

In an unprecedented move, the government of Tanzania has decided to construct 25-kilometre of road up Mount Kilimanjaro in a bid to provide for the needs of the World’s richest.

The features of this VIP route have not been made public but it is expected to be exclusive, private and only for select few who can afford it. Tanzania, has some of the World’s must see tourist attractions that attract some of the World’s elite.

Arguably, a Prince so and so along with CEOs of multibillion dollar companies as well a Hollywood famous faces, would like to visit these attractions without attracting too much attention.

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