By Africaguardian.com
Tona Lodge was founded in 1998 to take advantage of ideas and plans made possible under the Tanzania cultural tourism programme-A joint programme of the Netherlands Dev. Organisation and the Tanzania Tourist Board.
The Management of Tona Lodge saw the potential to expand the frontiers of poverty reduction through cultural tourism and ventured into investing in this type of tourism. A unique idea that had not been tested on its viability in our country.
The Southern Pare mountains remain relatively undiscovered as a tourism destination; its tourism potential has yet to transform its comparative advantages into competitive marketplace strengths. The Southern Pare mountains and the adjoining Mkomazi National Park form part of the Eastern Arc Chain of mountains and any transformation to competitiveness must be accomplished in a manner that protects the biodiversity of the area as well as the quality of the ever-increasing human population which threatens that biodiversity. This is a big challenge.
Poverty is not only a lack of income (though for many this will be the most important factor)
.It is also associated with vulnerability, ill health, and lack of opportunity, lack of respect, and limited access to private and public assets.
Going through the case of Tona Lodge you find a range of livelihood impacts, both positive and negative though the positive side comes through most strongly.
IMPACTS:
1. Increased contact and exposure via Tona Lodge (information, catalyst of ideas)- at the moment Tona Lodge and the surrounding area is covered in more than five internationally recognized travel Guide books e.g the Lonely Planet, the Rheisen Hower ,, Bradt edition, The Rough Guide, and others in French, Spanish and Japanese.
2. There has been significant infrastructural improvements in this remote area especially on the roads. The possibility to host some Ambassadors to Tanzania saw the local Community getting a donation of us $ 10,000 from the Japanese Ambassador- H.E Kaetaro Sato. The funds were effectively used for bridge Construction in the village. The villagers are now proud owners of a short cut road that was valued at more than 80 million Tshs. upon completion.In the course of constructing this street a compacting machine was availed by German friends who have all along shown sympathy to our course.At the moment this machine is used for various projects in the Pare diocese showing our continous networking with other institutions in the area. If the community did not take up this Tona opportunity they would have to wait for decades for many of these
benefits to come to them via the government if it could be identified as a priority anyway.
- Tona Lodge has been host to Lion club members from Lindsen-Norway and Cub-scouts in the U.S. Also members of the Evangelical Lutheran church in Mecklenburg, Germany, were among prominent visitors to Tona lodge.Upon return to their respective countries they made shipments of reading glasses enough for each and every villager with eye problems.
The programme to restore vision was launched by the Same District Commissioner-Mr. Ibrahim Marwa who underscored the importance of cultural tourism taking place in the district.
4. Last year Tona Lodge was host to eight research team members from the St Andrews Expand Society- Scotland and two students from Mweka College of wildlife to carry out research for possible Butterfly farming in the area. The positive results of such projects in Zanzibar and Usambara along with the price estimates placed on some of the butterflies, suggest a viable social business opportunity. The existing projects could be used as a model for the creation of projects for butterfly farming in the Mbaga area
.
.The team was able to spend both their time and resources to prepare a tourism map for the area whereby areas of tourism interest were identified.These maps can now be viewed on the Tona lodge web page.
5. Annually Tona Lodge is host to groups of students from U.K through the World challenge expeditions company in which these young men and women undertake various community projects. Some five primary schools and one Ward secondary school have been plastered or painted using their own money and at the end also donate equipments which turn out to be useful to the schools. A church building in Mbaga was painted by these volunteers and when we made an assessment of these works for schools and churches we found that the work over the years is worth around 10 million Tshs. Something quite significant in such a remote village.
6. Thanks to the Tanzania private sector found that the management of Tona was able to allow people to receive training in tourism and opportunity for advancement in their lives. The local people lack an understanding of tourists and their interests so Tona lodge focuses on appropriate training to increase awareness and understanding of who tourists are and what tourism products they want.
7. Tona Lodge facilitates the possibilities of marginalized groups in society e.g women to organize themselves into business groups. This way a group of women called Friends of Mbaga society was able to get a donor for a milling machine worth 5 million Tshs. From the Netherlands.
8. Tona Lodge is focusing its attention on food security for the villagers and has already secured a donor for 100 smallholder farmers to receive at least 20 kg each of high quality disease-resistant Irish potato seed variety.
9. Tona Lodge management is aware of the importance of image or identity in the marketplace. We are relatively unknown not only on the world tourism map but also on the local scene. Efforts have been made to attend International and local tourism fairs in which tangible benefits can now be seen. Again thanks to the Tanzania private sector foundation that it was possible for the Managing director of Tona Lodge to attend the ITB in Berlin and take advantage of attending the launching of the “Luther garden” in Wittenberg. Please visit www.luthergarten.de – The Luther Garden in Africa and see how we have been able to replicate this in a remote village of Mbaga.The management of Tona continues to request each and every visitor to at least plant one tree as a gesture of concern for the environment.
10. Culture is a very broad concept but it is the cultural heritage that give people their identity in terms of their daily life.The way they celebrate their achievements or come together in difficult times shows elements of their culture.To this end Tona lodge has encouraged formation of Traditional dancing groups in the village and visits to traditional healers. This way the local people are able to earn some income but also be proud of their cultural heritage.The local people have no idea how other people are regretting for having embraced other cultures at the expense of their own.
- Finally to attract visitors of different backgrounds especially those who are looking for “soft” tourism experience, Tona Lodge is constructing brand new apartments to cater for the varied interests of visitors. We probably will soon be opening our doors to the best accommodation facilities you can find anywhere in the Same district. What you will lack in the sophistication of Dar or Arusha will be made up of pure Tanzania countryside atmosphere. How Tona Lodge will develop cultural tourism and mitigate poverty to provide an impetus to sustainable development in the area remains to be answered. Poverty alleviation in these potentially rich environmental areas calls for complementary investments in tourism sectors that promote linkages between local production activities and tourism so that LEAKAGES are minimized and retention of benefits locally increased. The management of Tona Lodge is pushing this initiative supported by little more than sheer determination. The role of the private sector in developing different components of tourism products is the most difficult to define yet very important. This difficulty arises from the fact that tourism itself is not a single industry sector but rather multidimensional in nature.