Trekking Safaris Africa News

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By TEA Correpondent

Tanzania is likely to miss out on millions of dollars usually expected from the tourism industry following the decline of international tourists’ arrivals which is due to the global financial crisis. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, Tanzania suffered a 10 percent decline in foreign tourist arrivals in its wildlife-rich national parks in the first ten months of 2009.

The WTO’s 2009 comprehensive report shows that the country had received about 576,643 travelers, down from 641,951 international tourists in 2008. The UN body goes on to note that the negative trends in international tourism surfaced in the second half of 2008 and intensified in 2009 due to the global economic downturn.

As a result, Tanzania, East Africa’s second largest economy after Kenya, is currently struggling to promote domestic tourism in a bid to fill the gap in foreign tourism. Mr. Ibrahim Mussa, Assistant Director Research, Training and Statistics in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism observed that government had opted to concentrate on domestic tourism due to its potential.

“We have decided to increase efforts to woo domestic tourists as a counter to the effects of the global financial crisis because we found that it is paying off,” said Mr. Mussa. He added that findings revealed that an endeavor to pursue local tourists is paying off with a 19.3% increase in activity.

Mr. Donatius Kamamba, Director of Antiquities in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, said that a preliminary analysis conducted by his Ministry, shows that the number of visitors coming to the country for leisure had dropped due to the consequences of the financial crisis.

By TEA CORRESPONDENT

Singer Justin Timberlake and actress Jessica Biel have signed on to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in January 2010. They will be accompanied by rapper Lupe Fiasco and actress Isabel Lucas who are all going with the “Summit on the Summit” expedition a brain child of Ethiopian born singer Kenna.

“I have been training four times a week to get my VO2 (oxygen consumption) levels up to expand my lungs,” Justin told GQ.

In a statement about her decision to climb the more than 19,000 feet mountain to the peak, Biel said, “This is a basic human necessity that needs to be addressed now”.

For Kenna whose father suffered from water borne diseases in Ethiopia as a child, the effort to bring awareness to a world wide danger is something that hits very close to home. “My dad almost died as a child from water borne diseases in Ethiopia and he had talked to me about digging a well there and I thought, ‘I have too many friends who would be concerned with the subject of clean water. May be I can help out,’ “Kenna told ELLE magazine in a recent interview.

The climb will also help raise funds for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Play Pumps International and the Children’s safe drinking water programme.