TANAPA revenue up by 94 percent
TANZANIA: TANZANIA National Parks (TANAPA) has recorded a significant increase in revenue collection by 94 per cent after a total of 1.6 million tourists visited the country in the 2022/2023 financial year.
According to TANAPA the revenue has increased from 175bn/- in 2021/2022 to 337bn/- in the last financial year 2022/2023.
Speaking to editors and journalists on Thursday in Dar es Salaam, TANAPA Conservation Commissioner, Mr Musa Juma noted that such surpassing record is an upward trend in comparison to only 175bn/- recorded in the 2021/2022 Fiscal years from 1 million tourists.
The meeting aimed at highlighting progress made by TANAPA in three years of the sixth phase government under Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan spanning from March 2021 to March this year (2024).
Mr Juma commended President Samia for her efforts to boost the country’s tourism industry to new heights through among others citizens’ vaccination and the Royal Tour film during and after the Covid-19.
“The Royal Tour Film helped to revamp the tourism sector after the post Covid-19 effects, the upturn in number of tourists align with the ruling CCM Election Manifesto 2020/2025 which targets 5 million people by the end of next year with a revenue totalling 6 million US dollar (about 15tri/- ),” Mr Juma said.
He said currently the national parks across the country are operating well compared previous years. Mr Juma noted that the highest drop in number of tourists occurred in the 2020/2021 Fiscal Year whereby only 490,000 people visited national parks as a result of escalation of the pandemic.
He said it was from that ground the government utilised multidimensional efforts including the Royal Tour and vaccination to reignite the sector.
Detailing on the transformation of the national parks, he said the three years of President Dr Samia in office decorated by the Royal Tour Film and the economic diplomacy further experienced diversification of the tourism foreign markets by receiving tourists from China, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic and Israel among others.
He said the number of tourists from July to September (first quarter) of the current fiscal year (2023/2024) reached 1.5 million in which foreign tourists were 790,000 and local tourists were 720,000.
He said the number is up by 5 per cent from the set benchmark of 1.4 million tourists encompassing about 830,000 foreign tourists and 730,000 local tourists.
In terms of revenue in the current Fiscal Year from July 2023 to March 19, 2024, Mr Juma said TANAPA generated 340bn/- equivalent to 15 per cent increase from the intended target of 295bn in the particular period.
He added that TANAPA targets to collect 382bn/- by June this year. In another development, Mr Juma said TANAPA in the past three years of Dr Samia’s presidency won international accolade by bagging the “Best Practice Award” which is annually organised by the European Society for Quality Research (ESQR) provided for the public and non-public institutions with world class tourism service delivery.
“TANAPA has maintained collecting the ESQR awards in four years consecutively of which three awards including the Platinum Category (2021), Gold Category (2022) and the Diamond Category (2023) were recorded during the six-phase government,” he said.
He said the Serengeti National Park bagged five awards consecutively (2019 to 2023) from the World Travel Awards (WTA) for ascending as the best park in Africa adding that the Mount Kilimanjaro was shortlisted by the ‘Explore Worldwide’ based in UK as the world top most unforgettable natural landmark.
He said the country’s national park experience new form leisure including balloon tourism at Serengeti, Ruaha and Tarangire National Parks, bicycle tourism at the park in Arusha and Kilimanjaro, sport tourism including football at Mikumi National Park.
