Destination Tanzania: Discussing Tourism with Devota Mdachi of Tanzania Tourist Board

Interview with Devota Mdachi, former Managing Director of Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB)

What are your major internal challenges, things from within the institution itself that you face in order to be more active and boost tourism?

There are a lot of developments going on right now. Tanzania opened its borders to the world again last year. Now, there are a lot of charter flight planes coming to Tanzania. That could be the result of Tanzania announcing that it is safe and it is open again for tourism. We are quite hopeful that 2022 will be a better year for all of us. One of the major challenges is that competition right now is very stiff. Everybody is trying to get a piece of the small tourist cake. Right now, we are not only competing against neighboring destinations that have the same products, but we are also competing with countries outside the continent. Everybody is trying to get a piece of the global tourism market. In order to compete, you have to have a sufficient and significant budget. What we are getting you cannot compare to what South Africa or other countries in the region are setting aside. Another challenging thing, especially right now during this period of Corona, is that some nations are still locked. So, the numbers of tourists we were expecting to come from those countries are close to zero. But you also see that there are new destinations, especially in the African region, which are coming up. Countries like Rwanda are leading in terms of conference tourism, something that Tanzania is trying to venture into. Places like Botswana are destinations that we initially did not count as competition. But right now, there is a rise in the number of tourists going to those destinations. We are also facing the challenge of bad publicity, especially incidents like terrorism in neighboring countries. Those also affect the region and especially countries which are within the East African region. One incident in one country affects the other destinations, too. And of course, now recently, with the outbreak of COVID-19, everybody in the whole African region has been affected. We have seen the decline in the number of tourist arrivals from our major tourism markets. For more than 10 years, the US was the number one international source market, but everybody knows how the US was hit. We can see that it will take time for the US market to revive. We are very happy that the government decided to open up its skies in May 2020, and that allowed significant numbers of large tourist groups from a number of countries to start coming into the country again. That shows that the tourism industry has shown signs of reviving. The government was very active in developing standard operating procedures, which it did in collaboration with the private sector, for the tourism sector. Together with the openness and the commitment of our President, that attracted tourists from all over the world to come again to Tanzania. We are experiencing now large numbers of charter companies, especially from Poland. There are a lot of tourists from Russia who are coming in through charter planes that have been operating from Russia to Tanzania since the end of last year. So, there are signs that we are going to recover. It might take time. But we do believe that there is a light towards the end of the tunnel.

Last time we interviewed you, you talked about rebranding Tanzania from the land of Kilimanjaro to the soul of Africa. How has this positioned Tanzania as a whole?

Our new brand right now is Tanzania: unforgettable. We believe that when somebody comes to Tanzania, they will never forget what they see, the experience, the warm welcome. The new brand has helped a lot to position Tanzania in the international tourism arena and we do see a lot of people coming in from different markets to see why Tanzania is indeed unforgettable.

How has tourism infrastructure improved over the years in the country?

There are developments happening right now in Tanzania. The government under John Pombe Magufuli, our President, has done a lot to see that tourism infrastructure in Tanzania is developed. We have a state of the art three terminal airport. Because of the opening up of this airport, we are looking into attracting a lot of international airlines who come to Tanzania. We also have a standard gauge railway being constructed which will speed up transport to the interior part of Tanzania. Air Tanzania has been revamped. They have purchased a number of aircrafts, including some Dreamliners, and that has helped to draw tourists, opening up transport from Tanzania to other parts of the world. Before the outbreak of Corona, Air Tanzania had commenced to fly to India and there were plans for it to fly to China. If you look at investment in accommodation facilities, we have seen a number of international hotel chains open up house in Tanzania. Melia has increased its presence in Tanzania, we also have Rotana, and there are prospects of attracting more international hotel chains. There has been a lot of development in the past five years.

What have you done to attract FDI into the tourism sector and which areas would you wish to see more investment in Tanzania?

We would like to reach the target of 5 million tourists and see that Tanzania does reach that number of tourist arrivals and increase the number of earnings from the tourism sector. But also, we want to see the development of new tourism products.

We are now trying to develop conference tourism in Tanzania. We still see the need of inviting more investors, especially in accommodation facilities, but we also are trying to invite more investors to come and invest in low budget air transport, especially within Tanzania. We are trying to develop beach tourism and that will entail investment in the beach sector. We are trying to promote cruise tourism and right now the government is trying to attract investment to see that we build a port which will be able to receive large tourist ships from all over the world. We are trying to develop the southern part of Tanzania. There has been a lot of promotion, a lot of development in the northern part of Tanzania. That is where some of the leading tourism icons such as Serengeti and Ngorongoro are and that is where you find a lot of investment in accommodation facilities. But if you go down south and west, you experience a gap in the number of tourism facilities. So, the government right now is trying to encourage investors to invest in areas other than the northern circuits. We have a project under the World Bank called Regrow. Through that project, we have been able to identify a number of activities to improve the infrastructure in the southern area. We are talking about the development of air strips and improving the road infrastructure to tourist attractions in the southern part of Tanzania. A lot of work has been done by the Tanzania Tourist Board in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. We have been attending road shows in Russia and China all in an effort to try to encourage investors to come and invest in Tanzania. There is also an effort being done jointly by Tanzanian embassies and high commissions abroad and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to see that the embassies play a very big role in promoting economic diplomacy and trying to attract investors to come and see what Tanzania has to offer. Over the past six months, we have been holding Zoom meetings with the embassies and representatives from various institutions in their respective countries to show them the investment opportunities and incentives that are available in the tourism sector.

Also, in our last interview with you, you mentioned that you hoped to enter some emerging markets, specifically China and India. You also wanted to promote tourism within Africa, such as from South Africa and West Africa. How have your markets changed in this regard?

Now, we are working very closely with our embassies, unlike before. We are holding Zoom meetings with them to encourage them to attract operators in their respective countries to bring in tourists to Tanzania. We have seen the increase of numbers of tourists from South Africa, but it is very interesting that we have seen West Africa start to open up. There are a number of inquiries. Just last week, I spoke to the Tanzanian ambassador in Nigeria and he said that the interest is there. He has operators who want to come and later on introduce packages for Nigerian and also other West African country tourists to come to Tanzania. The good thing about this is that Tanzania is a country that has a lot to offer for any sort of tourists, be it for business or for leisure. That is the type of tourism that we need to promote, especially to West Africans, so that they can come here for business, but also take the same opportunity to come and see and relax in our attractions.

Countries like Botswana and Rwanda are coming up with tourism agendas. There is also the issue of security, which is a very vital point for any tourists. What are some of the strategies that you have put in place to help with this issue?

Tanzania is one of the safest destinations in the continent. If you look at our history with other African nations, Tanzania has always been home. We have opened up our doors since even before independence, to host refugees who came from the neighboring countries. As a result, our policy has been to make sure that when people come to Tanzania, they always find that they are safe and secure. If you look at the tourism sector, we have set up what we call a tourism police unit. They have police stations in all major cities and towns, but also in areas where there are tourism activities. This has helped to reduce the number of crimes happening to tourists. We also have hot lines that tourists can use when they come to Tanzania and they need some assistance.

Have there been any major policies that have had a great impact on the tourism sector recently?

We are reviewing our international marketing strategy. The new strategy will take into account the African continent where we will do more promotion to see that we receive a significant number of tourists from the African region. We are also trying to develop more tourism products. Our new policy is advocacy in the promotion and development of conference tourism in Tanzania. We have restructured the Tanzania Tourist Board and developed a unit that will be responsible for meetings and events. We are also trying to promote more cruise tourism and beach tourism in the region. We are also trying to increase the numbers of tourists who come to Tanzania. The new government came in last year in November and they set a target for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to reach 5 million tourists by the year 2025 and also to bring in more revenue to the figure of 6 billion USD by the year 2025. We are trying to come up with strategies that will help us reach the targets that were set. That means more promotion and development of domestic tourism, more promotion in the African region, especially during these times of COVID where our major source markets have been hit and people cannot travel to Tanzania. Within the continent, intra tourism can be done, can be promoted, and we can also benefit from that big share.

What are some success stories that you are proud of?

We have been at the forefront of seeing that the tourism numbers to Tanzania increase. Before Corona, we had reached the level of 1.5 million tourists coming into Tanzania and bringing in 2.4 billion USD. We were also able to open up some emerging markets. We were able to go to China and start attracting significant numbers of Chinese tourists. Before the outbreak of Corona, we signed a contract with a leading tour operator in China who was supposed to bring in 10,000 tourists. Unfortunately, with the outbreak, that has not been able to be resumed. But once things settle down, the Chinese market will be one of the leading markets. We also opened up new markets such as places like the Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, Ukraine. All of those are new markets that we see the interest is there, numbers are increasing, and with more promotion in those markets we will be able to reach the target that was set by the government.

What is your vision for the next two to three years, the medium term? What would you like to achieve for Tanzania Tourist Board?

We would like to reach the target of 5 million tourists and see that Tanzania does reach that number of tourist arrivals and increase the number of earnings from the tourism sector. But also, we want to see the development of new tourism products. We would like to see more cruise ships coming to Tanzania, we would like to see more airlines introducing their flights to Tanzania, we would like to see Tanzania continuing to hold the title of being the best safari destination in Africa. We want Tanzania to open up more to the region. We would love to have more tourists from West Africa, from South Africa, and also North Africa coming into Tanzania.

Are you working on any current projects?

Right now, there is an influx of tourists coming in from Russia. So, what we are working on now is trying to bring in Russian media companies and crews to take them around so they can make TV programs that depict what Tanzania has to offer. We are also working with a number of companies in the Czech Republic so they can promote Destination Tanzania there and also in neighboring countries such as Poland. We are also trying to set up a Convention Bureau. We started as a small unit. It is our hope that in the next three to five years, the unit will be operational and that we will be able to compete with other MICE destinations. We have the Swahili International Tourism Expo which was established in 2014. It is an international tourism event that happens annually in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 2019 was the last time that we hosted it. We could not host it in 2020 because of COVID-19. In the first year, 2014, we only had about 30 to 40 hosted buyers. But in 2019, the figure rose to 333. You can see the growth and there were many prospects that this could have become one of Africa’s greatest international tourism events. Post COVID, we do hope that in 2021 October, we will host the expo again to show more confidence to the tourism players that Tanzania is there, Tanzania is safe, and Tanzania is waiting to receive them.

You have been representing this Board for a number of years. What is your drive and your inspiration?

As a child, I loved traveling. My father used to work in the Foreign Affairs and we were able to travel to the United States when I was just four years old. It is one of my main hobbies. I love traveling. I love meeting new people. Over the years, when I started working with TTB, I was able to rise from a tourism officer all the way up to the Managing Director of the Tanzania Tourist Board. I have met a lot of people on the way, visited a lot of countries, and I am proud to have put TTB at the level that it is right now.

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