East African Business Week (Kampala)
Elias Wambura
17 June 2009
Dar Es Salaam — Tanzania has recognised eleven foreign tourist companies with a prestigious award.
Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) honoured the eleven companies from different countries with the prestigious TTB's Annual Tourism Awards during the 34th Africa Travel Association (ATA) Congress in Cairo, Egypt.
The honorees are African Dream Safaris; Thompson Safaris; African Mecca Safaris; Safari Ventures; Lion World Tours; Asante Safaris; South African Airways; Egypt Air; Ann Curry; NBC-TV; and Eloise Parker/New York Daily News.
The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ms. Shamsa Mwangunga announced that for the second consecutive year, the USA market was still the number one source of visitors to Tanzania. Mwangunga said the 2008 worldwide tourism arrivals were 770,3078, a seven percent increase; with visitors from the USA increasing from 58,341 to 66,953.
"We attribute this growth to many aspects of our marketing plan, not least of which is the strong support of our travel industry partners whom we are honouring here tonight as well as the great impact of a two-year CNN-US TV/NY Ad campaign", she boasted.
She added that if this trend continues they were confident of reaching their goal of one million tourists in 2012.
TTB Managing Director Peter Mwenguo said "Every year is special in Tanzania with its unparalleled national parks, game reserves and seven world heritage sites".
He further said this year they were also celebrating the 50th anniversary of a key archaeological breakthrough, the Louis and Mary Leakey discovery of the first intact hominoid skull in Oldupai gorge, the cradle of humankind. The discovery of the Zinjathropus skull allowed scientists to date beginnings of humankind to about two million years ago, and to determine that human evolution began not in Asia as first thought, but in Africa.
'We expect many visitors this year especially on July 17, 2009, the date of the anniversary. There will also be an international conference on Zinjathropus in Arusha, August 16-22, 2009. In fact thanks to the support of one of our honorees tonight, Asante Safaris, as well as Ethiopian Airlines, Tanzania now has its first ever archaeologically-focused tour in honour of this historic event.
Tanzania is also proud to be the first African country to host the Africa Diaspora Heritage Trail Conference (ADHT) that will take place in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar this October.
TTB announced the establishment of the Tanzania Tourism awards at the ATA Congress in May, 2000 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the first annual Tanzania tourism awards were presented at a gala dinner at the ATA Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, May 2001. The awards were created to support and show appreciation to the travel professionals and media who have worked hard promoting and selling Tanzania in the US market as well as to provide an incentive to increase the numbers even more in the coming years.
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