Tanzania Tourism

a little introduction

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Photo by Peter Mitchell on Unsplash

Hello friends,

It has been awhile. I spent most of January studying, learning, and preparing for an English proficiency exam since I am applying for permanent residency in Canada soon. I am a native English speaker but also an overthinker. I am a good test taker, usually, but I can also be a nervous test taker. So, I took this test very seriously, prepared thoroughly on weekdays and weekends and hoped to score the highest marks possible because it adds more points to my PR application. Thankfully, that strategy paid off and I got the highest scores on 3 out of 4 sections and scored high or advanced proficiency in the 4th. Mission accomplished and I am glad that it is over.

Another note, I don’t have a lot of subscribers here and I’ve thought about moving off of this platform recently and just having an old school blog and sending an email when a new post is published. I know this will not help growth, and I think I’m okay with that. I am not sure that I like the direction this platform is taking and it feels a bit like the fun has disappeared. It was meant for small writers and now all I see are content creators who have found a new way to charge readers and share affiliate links. I might change my mind but that is how I feel at this moment.

Tanzania tourism issues

I am continuing the conversation about issues in tourism within African countries. For this issue I’m focusing on Tanzania for a few reasons. I’ve been there and the company I work for now has a Tanzania safari trip, thus I regularly communicate with our partner in the country. And, I am still in contact with one of the guides from my 2017 trip. During my time in graduate school I interviewed two tourism entrepreneurs from Zanzibar who do business in both Zanzibar and Tanzania. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region that is part of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Nungwi, Zanzibar Photo by Majkl Velner on Unsplash

When you think about Tanzania, what do you know? You probably think about safaris and tourism based around viewing wildlife. Safari tourism has traditionally been the most important sector of the tourism industry. However, the country’s president, Jayakay Kilwete, visited the Caribbean on a vacation in 2024 and was inspired by that trip to develop Tanzania’s beaches as world class tourist destinations.

In 2024, the country introduced new regulations to protect its beaches, preserving both the ecosystems and protecting them for tourism. Tanzania has more than 1400 km of coastline on the mainland and Zanzibar and there are 6 main regulations meant to address climate change, pollution, and growing tourism demand. The Tanzanian government created regulations for wastewater and sewage management for new buildings along the beach. They’ve created restrictions on plastic usage to lower the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean - single use plastics are prohibited in coastal protected areas. There is a building requirement that hotels, resorts, and new construction has to be a certain distance from the tide line in order to minimize beach erosion. The mangroves along the coast are protected since they are such an important part of the ecosystem (mangroves are important, further reading). There are new guidelines for sustainable tourism operations, and finally there are fishing limits in protected areas.

A tourism report from early 2024 expounds on the need to develop other areas of the country for tourism besides just safaris and wildlife - those areas area actually overtouristed. Other suggestions include renovating airports in the south to upgrade them and thus encourage visits to cities and surrounding areas.

The Government's efforts to upgrade the airports in the southern areas, which include Iringa and Mbeya, are commendable as this is a step in the right direction in the development of Tourism in the south circuit. Further, new areas for tourism growth will generate positive economic impacts and ensure the distribution of economic benefits to the local communities. For instance, the coastal regions, Dar es Salaam, Tanga, and Pwani, enriched with beautiful beaches, historical and natural attractions, have an enormous potential to become new tourist destinations.

So, how is this project developing? More to come in the next issue. :)

Sources:

https://www.tourism-review.com/challenges-for-the-tanzania-tourism-industry-news1981

https://www.lappetfacedsafaris.com/tanzania-implements-new-regulations-for-beach-conservation/

A few tourism links I found interesting

Visiting Asheville after Hurricane Helene

Working in hospitality in LA during the fires.

The first autism certified airline.

Canada closes border to hikers on the PCT.

Shrinking glaciers in the Alps result in redrawing of the Italian-Swiss border.

This is from October, but when I saw it, I laughed. I also like some good alliteration. A Barbie Bahamas Beach vacation.

Things I’ve liked lately…

The Ministry of Time - I liked this book so much that was part sci-fi, part magical realism? It was about a ministry within the UK government in the present day that was dealing with time travellers from the 1600s, 1800s, and WWI. The protagonist is a minder of sorts, she lives with one of the time refugees and is meant to help him adjust to the modern day. This book was witty, sad, complicated, and very entertaining.

Colored Television - This story was also a standout for me. It was funny, had precarious situations, dealt with real world issues, and made me sad more than once. It is the story of a family living in Los Angeles. The mother is a writer who has been working on her second novel for far too long and the father an artist who has never been very successful. So, they’re both kind of on the verge of feeling financially comfortable or being financially ruined. They’re housesitting for one of her friends for a year in a very desirable house and neighborhood while the owner/friend is in Australia working on a tv show he wrote. The family is always housesitting though, they’ve been lucky to always have this setup and only live in crappy apartments between those short spurts. The author tries her hand at pitching a tv show to a well-known and high-power producer and it takes off from there.

The Substance - This is not for the faint of heart. I’ve yet to find anyone else who has seen it and I can’t convince anyone to watch it even if I promise to sit through it again. I liked it. I don’t normally like horror but it was weird, creepy, a little too violent, but I was entertained and I am glad that I watched it. I guess that kind of horror does not bother me because I thought a few of the horror parts were so outlandish that I actually laughed aloud at a few of them. If you’ve seen it, I’d love to know what you thought of it.

The Brutalist - I also saw this. I think I enjoyed it for the most part. I am glad that I watched it. It was definitely not a happy story as it was the story of the fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect, Lazslo Toth, who fled Europe for the United States during WWII. He left his wife and niece behind after they were forcibly separated and sent to different camps but he managed to escape. His arrival and story in the US is not a happy one or easy either. At 3.5 hours, it was a long one and there was an intermission.

The Breakthrough - This short show from Swedish was based on a true story about trying to solve a murder case from 1994 in Linköping, Sweden. The case was still unsolved 15 years after it happened. It does start with the murder, so if that’s not your thing, I’d avoid it. However, there were twists and turns and it was a nice little break from the other two things I watched.

That is all for this issue. More on Tanzania in the next issue.

Thank you for being here!

-Sonya