PANDEMIC HIT EA TOURISM REBOUNDS TO 10 PERCENT OF REGION'S GDP

BY GRACE MACHA IN ARUSHA

Tourism has rebounded to ten percent of the combined $ 280billion GDP of the East African Community (EAC) partner states.

The sector also remains top in foreign exchange earnings, estimated at 17 percent and seven percent of employment.

Tourism, the lifeline of economies of some EAC states, was severely impacted by Covid-19, almost bringing it to its knees.

The region lost a record $ 4.8billion in revenues in 2020 alone as the foreign visitors dropped to 2.25 million from 7.2 million in 2019.

However, according to the EAC secretariat,the bloc will soon roll out interventions geared to enable the region to surpass the number of visitors recorded that year.

The interventions are contained in the donor-supported EAC Tourism Marketing Strategy 2021-2025 which is already under implementation.

"Among various interventions are joint tourism promotion through exhibitions", said Jean Baptiste Havugimana,the EAC director of Productive Sectors.

Others are development of minimum standards for tourism service providers such as tour operators, travel agents and tour guides.

The EAC is also gunning for common classification criteria for hotels even as it initiated a domestic tourism (Tembea Nyumbani) drive.

Mr. Havugimana was speaking in Kampala during the just-ended 7th edition of the Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo.

He said encouraging statistics of the sector's rebound was enough indication that tourism was key in the EAC economies.

"The EAC Treaty attaches a lot of importance to the tourism sector owing to the role it plays in the socio-economic development of the region", he said.

Among the countries where tourism has shown a fast recovery is Tanzania which recorded 1.4 million arrivals last year.

The number of foreign visitors dropped sharply from an all time  high of 1.5 million in 2019 prior to Covid-19 to slightly over 600,000 in 2020.

Due to various measures put in place by the government, including rolling out anti-Covid-19 vaccinations, the figure rose to about 922,692 in 2021.

The tourist arrivals noted in 2022 (1.4million) slightly missed the record number of 1.5 million tourists  recorded in 2019 by only 530,000. 

The Bank of Tanzania's (BoT) Monthly Economic Review for March, 2023 shows that the country received 1.5 million visitors during the year ending February, 2023.

This was more than the 959,329 that were registered during the preceding year and above the pre-pandemic level of 1.5 million in 2019.

"This reflects continued recovery of the tourism sector,” the central bank said, noting that increased tourism earnings were in tandem with general increase in export revenues.

The four-day tourism Expo in the Ugandan capital which ended on Saturday last week attracted over 150 exhibitors from around the region.

Organized annually by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), it brought together tourism stakeholders and other service providers along the tourism value chain.

Besides those originating from the  seven EAC partner states, other hosted buyers came from different tourist source markets.

These included the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Poland, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria , among others.

The German international cooperation agency, GIZ, which is supporting the EAC Tourism Marketing Strategy, pledged continued assistance.

"GIZ will continue the EAC joint tourism promotion as part of integration initiatives", reaffirmed GIZ Country Director for Uganda, Mr. James Macbeth Forbes.

He added that removal of barriers to trade and investments in the region is a key component in the integration process.

During the event, exhibitors and delegates from the EAC member countries encouraged the partner states to participate in tourism promotion events "organized by other partner states".