The minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, Professor Jumanne Maghembe, this week announced plans to boost tourism in Tanzania.

The programmes, which would be implemented this financial year, are in several sectors. They include developing the infrastructure in transportation and hotels as well as promoting the country's tourist destinations through advertisements in the mass media of international repute.

Others are creating a fund to expand existing hotel facilities and embarking on strategies geared to make tourism the second contributor to the country's economy, behind agriculture.

In implementing these programmes, the minister said the government would embark on aggressive marketing in the UK, US, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Scandinavian countries.

These are good programmes that, if implemented to the letter, would go a long way towards boosting the tourism sector. It is undisputable that this country is the most endowed with tourist attractions on this side of the globe.

Such are the Serengeti National Park, Mt Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, Ngorongoro Crator which is dubbed the eighth wonder of the world for its abundance of rare wild animals and so on, so forth; the list is endless!

But, sadly, the tourist sector has not contributed as much as it should have done. And not without reason. There may be many, but the main ones are poor infrastructure, few reputable hotels and thus few hotel beds and inadequate publicity of the tourist attractions.

These have had negative effects on the sector and have cost us a fortune in terms of less revenue than what should have been earned.

It is good that the government has now realized this and wants to make a major breakthrough in the sector.

We are anxious to see how effective the grand programmes will work. For, as we have always said, there have been many such government programmes before that have only ended up gathering dust in the government's filing cabinets.