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Another tourism fair, but any real benefits?
2008-03-06 09:47:24
By Editor
Yesterday was widely expected to be a sure day to remember for Tanzania, with a whole 52 companies from the country teaming up to sell it at the International Tourism Exchange Fair (ITB) in Berlin.
It was aptly noted that the momentous occasion had all the potential to add to the push the country`s tourism promotion campaign so badly needs to succeed.
It is decades since Tanzania decided that it was part of its responsibility to make itself known to the world as a destination worth going around and investing in.
It is possible that the various initiatives taken towards that end have registered progress which one might justifiably be proud of.
All the same, there is still every reason to believe that more encouraging headway would have been made under a more conducive environment.
According to the Tanzania Tourist Board, the fair is supposed to be a focused forum at which tourism industry stakeholders will share relevant experience and seal business deals.
TTB marketing director Amant Macha is on record as having said that the fair would attract 11,000-plus exhibitors from some 180 countries, its thrust being on the drawing up of strategic tourism programmes and products able to find a ready reliable market in Africa.
We are told that, this time around, part of the fair’s focus would be on luxury markets and how the development of tourism interacts with environmental issues.
This mere fact makes the event of very special importance to Tanzania, which has been working hard to come up with an environment-supportive tourism industry.
Tanzania has had the luck and pleasure of attending a large number of regional and international tourism fairs, exhibitions and expositions over the years.
Additionally, it has hosted a decent number of similar events. That has afforded it invaluable exposure which will have added to any expertise it may have previously had in making its own tourism sector tick more and benefit our people more.
There are both pros and cons to tourism, just as there are to most other businesses and the impact of the negative side of the equation would be vastly mitigated if the gains credited to the positive side trickled deep down to the people adversely affected.
TTB must be fully aware of this fact, what with its passionate desire to learn the most it can from countries and institutions more experienced in making the tourism stand out as an asset whose development does not also have to endanger the environment and humankind`s very survival.
The way we see it, this is partly the background against which the relevance or otherwise of ITB and other similar forums ought to be viewed and evaluated.
Our representatives in Berlin should use the fair to learn better ways of meeting the challenges facing the marketing of tourist attractions amid cut-throat global competition without losing track of the need to ensure that the tourism industry does not harm our environment and social or cultural values. That, too, is a serious challenge.
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