The government vows to continue working hand in hand with private sectors to boost tourism activities especially in formulation of policies and creating conducive environment across the country.
That has been said by the Media and Communications Officer of Tourism Confederation of Tanzania (TCT), Mr. Denis Simkoko during the presentation of the 2017 Hospitality Report from Jumia Travel Tanzania, an event which took place at Golden Tulip Dar es Salaam city center.
“It’s obvious that the continuous growth rate of tourism is a result of successful cooperation between the government and private sectors. The Tourism Confederation of Tanzania acts like a bridge to connect various stakeholders within the industry and the responsible ministry. Usually we do meet with the key players in a value chain, which are almost twelve of them to discuss various matters of our concern. After that we present the suggestions to government for feedback as well as seeking platforms for collective discussions,” commented Mr. Simkoko
“Apart from our contribution of tax reforms and policies, we also have our staff in the task forces and committees working very closely with the government. Even though there are some challenges to get full support between public and private sectors, but still we believe in consistent and clear system of organizing and conducting of meetings, dialogues and trainings.
In addition to that, TCT also playing a great role in promoting improvements to private sectors especially by imparting skills to human resources. For instance, with collaboration with Hotel Association of Tanzania and National College of Tourism we offer programs to give youth skills so as to become easily employable within the tourism industry, ” Simkoko.
On her side the Country Manager of Jumia Travel Tanzania, Ms. Fatema Dharsee noted that the development in science and technology especially the invasion of internet network has huge impact on tourism and hospitality sector across the country.
“Until 2016 the number of internet users has increased to more than 19 million compared to 17 million in 2015. That is a 0.9 percentage of increase annually and 83 percentage of penetration level among the 50 million population throughout the country. This is a good sign for Jumia Travel as that number increases we will be having a huge number of customers using online hotel booking services in future. And according to the hospitality report which we have presented today, number of Tanzanians who prefer online services is tremendously increasing which is good for the growth of tourism and hospitality sector,” said Ms. Dharsee.
“This report has also revealed that a remarkable number of Tanzanians who search for hotel service online through mobile (60%) is huge comparing to those who use computer (40%). But the most interesting thing is that the situation is different when it comes to mode of booking, most of them prefer computer (65%) compared to mobile (35%). And we look into the preferences of the hotels booked still two-star (41%) and three-star (39%) properties are most booked compared to one-star (4%) and five-star (4%) ones. Most customers do not prefer one-star and five-star hotels due to services of poor quality and higher costs respectively,” added Ms. Dharsee.
The Country Manager for a Pan-African online travel agency concluded by saying that, “We are working real hard to convince and facilitate hoteliers as well as customers to shift their focus on online platforms as they offer variety of options such as simplicity, reliability and affordability. For instance, through Jumia Travel website a hotel can enjoy free online and marketing visibility across the country and the rest of Africa continent if not worldwide.
Apart from that we also facilitate managers and reservation personnel of different hotels with a system which they can utilize to manage and monitor their activities wherever and whenever they are. On the other hand customers also enjoy options from thousands from our inventory and save them a hassle from browsing one hotel website to another.”
Comments
Post a Comment