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TTB urges tourism stakeholders to prepare for June Sullivan summit
2007-12-10 08:58:29
By Perege Gumbo
The Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB)`s Managing Director Peter J. Mwenguo has urgued stakeholders in the tourism sector to scale up preparations so that they can fully benefit from the coming Sullivan summit in Arusha.
The meeting to be held in June next year under a theme `Tourism and Infrastructure Development` will be attended by an estimated 4,000 participants mostly from the US and other African countries.
Mwenguo was responding to questions sought to, among other things, explore states of preparations being made to make sure Tanzanians benefited most from the coming Eight Sullivan summit to be held in Arusha from June 2 to 6, next year.
`This is the right time for the tourism stakeholders to prepare themselves by ensuring that hotels, arts and crafts, batiks and all other commodities preferred by tourists are ready for sale during the summit,` he said.
He said that TTB is sensitising Tanzanians to use this chance during the Sullivan summit to advirtise their own tourism commodities and where possible make substantial financial benefits out of the meeting.
Since the announcement of Tanzania as the host of the meeting, various efforts have been made to advertise the meeting in and outside the country with a view to making it a success.
Tanzania hosts the Sullivan meeting amid great performance of the tourism sector making tourism experts to view the meeting as a tourism promotional catalyst that has come at the right time.
Mwenguo said the Sullivan summit is coming at the right time, as Tanzania targets to attract more than 750,000 tourists this year from 644,124 that visited the country last year.
He said that the government efforts to market the national tourism potentials have paid off and the receipts from the sector have ever since been rising steadily.
In 2001, the government receipts from the tourism sector stood at USD725m and the amount jumped to US846 million in 2004.
The intensive marketing of the sector`s potential increased further to USD862m last year.
On the other hand TTB`s promotion campaigns of local tourism potentials have been recognised internationally.
In January this year TTB was among 40 worldwide companies from 35 countries that were presented with golden awards and certificates in Berlin, Germany.
The awards were presented in recognition of the winner countries` efforts towards promotion of their products and services through modern marketing techniques, consistent information systems and brand image.
The TTB award was based on the achievements it is getting on its systematic destination marketing based on the tourism policy of ``low volume`, ``high yields``, commonly referred to as ``quality tourism``.
The branding of Tanzania products using the then slogan `Tanzania, Authentic Africa,` and recently `Tanzania, the Land of Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar` has positioned the country among the top preferred tourism destinations in Africa.
Other African countries whose representatives received the awards included Gambia, South Africa, Algeria and Zimbabwe.
In recent years, TTB has diversified and increased marketing campaigns in the key markets of North America, Europe and launched marketing programmes in the emerging markets of South Africa, Japan, Korea, China, India, Eastern Europe and Middle East.
The Berlin`s award presentation is a continuation of TTB's good record as it had earlier scooped a number of international awards in as far as tourism promotion worldwide is concerned.
For instance TTB`s film, `Tanzania Authentic Africa` emerged the winner at the Grand Prix International Film Festival held in Vienna Austria in November 2004.
As a result, Tanzania became the first African country ever to win this world`s premier tourist film award `The World Grand Prix Award. TTB film beat 77 other films to emerge top winner of the prestigious gold award.
In September 2004, the same film at the Grand Prix MEFEST 2004 held in Zlatbor, Serbia, was announced the first winner and awarded The Golden Pine Prix.
This week, the management of Arusha International Conference Center (AICC) has announced temporary closure of the Centre to undertake major rehabilitation work aimed at enhancing comfortable stay and conducting of the meeting.
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