Tanzania Tourist Board

Tanzania`s initiative to promote her tourist attractions South African cities has achieved positive responses after travel agents and direct consumers have shown interest to promote the East African country in the southern African region.

This was revealed on Tuesday by Philip Chitaunga, Tourism Services Manager, of the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) who was accompanied by other Tanzanian delegate to take part at road tourism shows held in the cities of Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa from May 16 to 18, this year 2012.

The road shows held in those cities featured most inspiring talks on Tanzanian tourism followed by short movie showcasing highlighting the country’s tourism products and a high-level tourism delegation.

“While in those cities we made a country presentation to show the potential tourists what we have, made face to face discussions with the travel agents and direct consumers meetings and they were very impressed. They praise Selous Game Reserve, Serengeti National Park, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro Crater as among the best wildlife viewing spots in Tanzania,” he said.

“They promised us to promote the tourist attractions in South Africa and other parts of the world as well as put them in their packages,” he said.

“This is time to promote Tanzania as a tourist destination because, the majority of travel agents as well as direct consumers have been promoting Zanzibar than Tanzania Mainland. This is because an ITIME airline has direct flight from South Africa to Zanzibar,” he said.

“They said Selous Game Reserve is an exciting area to visit. It’s full in real jungle and its authenticity is captivating,” they said adding that they will start to promote it.

On Serengeti National Park, they were very impressed by the annual wildebeests’ migration that is one of nature's most awe-inspiring wonders at the park. Serengeti is the seventh New Wonder of the world.

On Ngorongoro Crater, they said they were very impressed to see the local inhabitants, the Maasai herdsmen and their cattle live in harmony with the wildlife that is very rare in other countries in the world.

The delegation promoted the country’s tourist attractions in a move that market analyst say it would help Tanzania to receive more foreign tourists.

During the tourism road show TTB conducted TTB raffle for participants who attended the show at the grand finale in Johannesburg.

Merrill Poller from Molo Africa Tours emerged the overall winner of a Tanzania Safari sponsored by ITIME Airlines in partnership with Kinasi Lodge and she won a prize to visit Zanzibar and two tickets for two return flights from Johannesburg to Zanzibar, a visit to Mafia Island for two nights as well as Kinasi Lodge for two nights.

Esna Van Zyl, of Navigator Film emerged the second winner for a trip sponsored by Serena Hotel to Tanzania, while Illona du Bruyn, GSA representative World Travel emerged the third winner and went away with a prize of staying at Southern Sun Dar es Salaam for two nights.