TOURISM, A GIFT FOR BOTH INDIGENOUS TANZANIANS AND FOREIGNERS
Tourism, A gift for Both Indigenous Tanzanians and Foreigners : It happens several times the society considering tourism activities as a foreign tradition. Some of them are viewing it as a tradition to be done by foreigners mostly Europeans. Also, some has been taking it as it belongs to rich people. Poor people can not have some tourism activities. This is a myth.
The truth is that, tourism activities can be done by anyone who wishes to do so. For instance, group of two or more friends, family or relatives can decide to spend their time together enjoying in a certain special environment. They can spend some amount of money to make them enjoy on that particular day. They can be very happy with their spending but when it comes on the case of tourism it seems as a poor spending of time and money. This is mostly done during weekend and holidays by related people.
When we are talking about tourism, we mean the situation of people deciding to move from one place to another purposely for enjoyment or entertainments, learning or any other objectives. Tourism can be a local tourism or international one. Local or domestic tourism involves moving from one place to another place within the country. For instance, moving from Mwanza to Mbeya purposely for learning, enjoying or entertaining.
In other hands, international tourism entails moving from one country to another for the same purpose of learning, enjoying or entertaining. For example, a tourism from Kenya to Dubai or United States of America to Portugal. It can also be from one continent to another as a movement from Africa to Europe or from North America to South America.
Following the decline of tourism activities in African countries, has led to most of them and their local companies looking for alternative ways to boost tourism activities. This is also one in our country, Tanzania as well. One of the efforts that has been done is fighting against the notion that tourism activities is just for the Europeans and the rich people.
For some years we have not practicing the tendency of visiting our various tourist attractions such as national parks, historical sites, museums and other attractive areas for tourism that can be visited purposely either for learning or enjoying.
Most of us are doing this because we have not seen the worth of visiting various sites of our country. We have failed even to recognize the various importance of being tourists.
The following are the importance of visiting various tourist attractions in Tanzania;
Finding various areas for investments; sometimes it is very difficult to meet with investing opportunities in different areas when you are not moving. But when you move from one place to another, one is likely to meet various opportunities for investing. For instance, a person from Dar es salaam when moves to Mbeya they can meet with various agricultural opportunities for investing such as investing in rice productions and avocado productions.
Tourism helps to get business connections; business opportunities are available in every corner of the world. Sometimes one can be a producer of a certain goods but they are facing market problems in that particular place. So, they need to move from one region to another or from one country to another so that they can be able to meet with the market for their products. Most businessmen have found new market by using this means.
Meeting with various employment opportunities; as we know that we are facing employment problems in our country for several people graduate with nice grades on their certificates but no place to work. When you are one of them and sitting in the same place without visiting other places, it is very rare to with those opportunities but when you are moving to other places you can meet with those opportunities in some companies or institutions seeking people of your professions. So, it is very important to have these tours.
Exposing yourself to new environment; most of us are more interested moving from one place to another. Even our mental situations tend to change when we move from one place to another. For instance, moving from Mbeya to Dar es salaam gives a visitor an ample chance how the environment of Dar es salaam sounds like just because there are some differences between the two. For instance, Mbeya is a cold region while Dar es salaam is a hot one.
Building connectivity with new people; it is well known that we are in the digital world; the world of connections whereby in order to survive you need to be connected to some people or companies. So, moving from one place to another gives tourists an opportunity of meeting new people where when successful connected with them they can be significant in solving some of the problems. For instance, when a person from Kigoma goes to Serengeti for tourism. When they meet people from Mtwara coming there for the same purpose of tourism they can later on be connected when a person from Kigoma wishes to go to Mtwara. So, tourism especially domestic one acts as a great bridge for connections.
Tourism is a good chance of learning new culture; one can learn other people’s culture by moving from one place to another. As it is said earlier that people do move for learning or enjoying when they visit the new place. This is another opportunity to learn new culture of a particular society. For instance, a person from Mount Kilimanjaro when decides to go to Songwe for tourism, they can learn the lifestyle of people from Songwe region such as the Nyiha and the Nyamwanga tribes.
It is also a source of income to our country; when we visit various places like national parks, museums, and other historical sites, we are likely to pay some amount of money that acts as an entrance fee. That money can be used by the government for providing social services to her citizens. For example, the government can spend that money for constructing health centers, educations infrastructures and other social services like roads.
Then, tourism preserve cultural heritage; the historical sites act as a forum for the people to learn about their cultural origin involving where they are coming from, where they are and where they are moving to. Through tourism, people can know their culture or the culture of a particular society. For example, moving to Iringa where various historical sites are found can be used as a tool of instilling cultural values of the Hehe tribe by learning about their life styles, wearing style and so on.
Tourism imparts patriotic feelings among its citizens; moving from one place to another helps in imparting patriotic spirit from one generation to another. For instance, when you visit those colonial historical sites from Iringa, one can know how the great leader of the Hehe, Mkwawa fought against Germany colonial masters and initially defeated them. This instills the patriotic feelings that the whites can be defeated and the only thing to fear that we have been left with is only God.
Tourism is a basket of knowledge that need to be transferred from one person to another manually. Everyone need to be passed through that knowledge that will help to get various knowledge about cross cutting issues that are very significant for our country. For instance, education about environmental conservations, global warming and the wildlife. This education needs to be stored to every individual. So, people need to travel seeking for this knowledge.
Tourism is a source of national unity; when people from different regions meet together and get same education about a certain thing from the same tour guiders, it acts as a way of cementing the national unity and building the spirit of togetherness and solidarity among citizens. Citizens become cemented together, same spirit with unity. That is the worth of visiting our tourist attractions.
Then getting education about wildlife; Tanzania is one of the few countries in Africa endowed with a lot of animals. Visiting Tanzania wildlife gives an opportunity for people to understand and explore the lifestyle of various animals in our countries. People gets to know how these animals live, their lifestyle, the favorable environments, their life span and some other things. One can not be exposed to wildlife without visiting these areas. This is just because in order for one to get the right knowledge and right information about these wild animals one need to visit the places.
Some of the places commonly known as national parks that one may likely find these wild animals are like; Manyara national park, Serengeti national park, Ngorongoro national park, Saadan national park, Gombe national park, Tarangire national park, Kitulo national park and some more others. Tanzania is said to have more than twenty national parks and has been written in a record of very few countries in Africa with a good number of national parks.
There are so many ways that we can learn about tourism and wildlife exploration in our country. But the best one is through having those tours in various national parks, historical sites and other things that are related to tourism activities. People need to learn more about their culture, meeting various opportunities, creating connections which can be done best by tourism.
