Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) - While some officials are telling people that the ongoing financial crisis is of little impact to the local economy, operators and hoteliers are already suffering and counting loses.
Various entrepreneurs have told the Arusha Times that their businesses are staggering and they know for sure that the main reasons is the global financial crisis which started to show its effects in the middle of this year.
Around the world stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed or been bought out, and governments in even the wealthiest nations have had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems.
Solomon Laizer, the Manager of Arusha Tourist Inn, a popular joint for budget tourists said many guests who had earlier ordered their reservations from Europe and USA have made cancellations following the global financial meltdown.
He said most of the guests of that Inn located along Sokoine Road would normally book for their accommodation straight from their home countries without going through tour operators. When they arrive to Arusha then they would make arrangements for their safaris. During October, the manager said , he experienced about 60 percent cancellations.
However, Godfrey Mwandambo, the manager of another hotel, the Arusha Backpackers Hotel, also along Sokoine Road, said he did not think the fall in the number of booking to his hotel was due to the global financial crisis but rather to the US presidential elections. He said many tourists, most of them happen to be Americans, have made reservations at the hotel that are effective after the US elections.
Tour Travel Companies have also expressed concern on the impact of the economic crunch on the travel and tourism industry. The director of the Great Maasai Adventure, Lotta Mollel said his company had already cancelled several booking of tourists, from the US, who were expected to use his services this month.
“I have already cancelled three packages after being instructed to do so because the would be tourists have decided to stay put to see how the financial crisis is going,” he said.
Lotta explained that for his company the cancellations of the tour packages were a major blow because it did not only mean that he won’t get any income but he had also suffered a lot of losses to prepare for the guests. “Even the number of pop-in tourists, those who do not make reservations, has suddenly declined”, he said.
The tourism industry contributes 17.2 per cent of the Tanzania’s Gross Domestic Product and is the second most important activity after agriculture. Tanzania received 719,031 tourists during the financial year 2006/07 and money accrued was about USD 1 billion.
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