By Byase Luteke : Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) has been going places
recently. In 2008 the tourism body launched a major marketing campaign
worldwide particularly in the United States of America (USA). In the
third quarter of 2008 the government through TTB launched an
aggressive promotion of Tanzania on CNN and world channel of ABC
Television. The message was spot on, short and snappy: “Tanzania-Land
of Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar and the Serengeti”. This is the marketing
drive that President Kikwete passionately and jokingly alluded to when
addressing Parliament in August 2008 in Dodoma. If Tanzania had
airlines of world class stature and experience there would have been a
rejoinder to the foregoing tourism advert as follows: “And Air
Tanzania and Precision Air will take you there”. But under the
circumstances this can only be a wishful thinking. This is one of the
reasons Tanzania still has a long way to go before her tourism
potential can be fully optimized.
TTB’s marketing crusade in this regard is three pronged. Firstly, to
repackage Tanzania as a top notch tourism product that can sell
competitively in the marketplace. Secondly, part of the message is to
correct an entrenched false impression out there purporting
Kilimanjaro to be in Kenya! Our neighbor has for donkey years
outwitted Tanzania by selling Kilimanjaro as part and parcel of the
Kenyan tourism product. Previously tourists would arrive in Kenya
only to realize that they had to cross the border to Tanzania to take
a closer view and climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Meanwhile Kenyan Tourist
Agencies would be laughing all the way to the bank while Tanzania was
left with just crumbs. Lastly, TTB’s message is aimed at attracting
high quality tourism (USA has high disposable income) as opposed to
mass tourism which has worked elsewhere but with dire consequences.
There are also some positive reports to the effect that TTB put up a
good show at the recent London Travel Market Fair held in the UK. It
became apparent at this Fair that Tanzania is, slowly but surely,
becoming a serious contender in the world tourism industry. We commend
TTB for all these good initiatives being taken to ensure that tourism
plays an effective role in the socio-economic development of this
country. Tourism is one area where indisputably Tanzania has a
competitive advantage. Our country is not about to become a “Silicon
Valley”. Certainly not in the near future. We can only excel where
we have an economic competitive advantage like agriculture and
tourism. It is in this context that I think TTB is on the right track.
However, there is a danger that tourism could remain a Cinderella in
this country until certain fundamental issues are seriously addressed.
In principle it is acknowledged that Tourism and Air Transport are, by
and large, intertwined. To be able to develop sustainable tourism a
country needs an affective air transport system. These two sectors
compliment each other. There are very few countries in the world that
can become serious tourist destinations without a “home based”
airline. You need a strong home based airline to act as a catalyst to
bring about tourism revolution.
Examples abound. Thailand is a tourism magnet thanks to Thai
International and Phukket Air. We all see how Malaysia Airlines is
bombarding the international airwaves, relentlessly promoting
Malaysia’s beaches as being the best on the planet. Dubai has really
nothing to offer save for a desert, some beaches and sky crappers but
look at how Emirates Airlines has gone all the way to pamper that
desert country and Dubai is now the place to go! Nearer home, Kenya
Airways is busy blowing the Kenya Tourism Trumpet as the “Pride of
Africa”. I can go on and on but let me just mention a few.
The old adage that says it takes two to tango comes into play.
Indeed, in all these countries home based airlines have been working
hand in glove with tourism bodies to vigorously promote the tourism
potential of respective countries to bring about major tourism
landmarks. Other foreign airlines can only come in to augment these
efforts. In spite of all what Tanzania has on her tourism menu, it
would be foolhardy to even contemplate that the likes of British
Airways, KLM, Ethiopian Airlines, et al, could join in earnest TTB’s
tourism drive bandwagon to make it a success. As far as the foreign
airlines are concerned, Tanzania is just one of the many tourism
products waiting on the shelf to be sold. In the marketplace Tanzania
is in competition with Bermuda, Hawaii, Australia, Brazil, Spain,
South Africa and you guessed right, Kenya! Just to mention but a few.
To effectively promote a tourism destination an airline needs to
allocate sizeable resources. As Ms. Sada Juma, Tanzania Area Manager
for British Airways (BA) will attest, what she gets from BA for
promoting tourism in Tanzania is just peanuts. It is therefore quite
obvious that in order for the tourism sector to be able to take off
effectively, our country needs to come up with an equally effective
air transport policy that will go hand in hand with the tourism
policy.
As a matter of priority our transport policy and infrastructure need
to be reviewed and developed respectively, to be able to cope with the
impeding tourism implosion in the country once the TTB marketing
campaign eventually comes into effect. For instance, the current
airport infrastructure at Julius Kambarage Nyerere International
Airport (JKNIA), Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) and Zanzibar
Airport need be upgraded as matter of urgency. Experience has shown
that at the moment JKNIA cannot efficiently handle three big passenger
aircraft at the same time. The immigration area becomes too congested,
toilet facilities are in short supply, air conditioning becomes
ineffective and the baggage handling system gets completely
overwhelmed. JKNIA just like KIA and Zanzibar Airport are, by design,
not a user friendly airports for transit passengers. There are
literally no first/business class lounges to offer comfort for those
who can afford it and the duty free shopping areas are too small for
future expansion. We have all seen the chaotic situation at Zanzibar
Airport when more than two charter flights arrive or leave at the same
time. All these shortcomings do not augur well with TTB’s tourism
strategy. One wonders what is likely to happen if tourism increases
two fold just a few years down the road. It would be interesting to
look at the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority’s (TCAA) medium and long
term plan and see how they plan to address all these and other
related issues.
Meanwhile when all these endeavors are going on, Tanzania needs to
seriously address the development of the airline sector which
currently is a major drawback on the country’s tourism potential. As I
have shown above the role of a home based airline in promoting the
tourism industry cannot be overemphasized. It does not really matter
if such an airline is a private airline like Precision Air or a public
one just like Air Tanzania. As Chairman Mao Tse Tung used to say; it
does not matter whether a cat is white or black as long as it can
catch a mice. Unfortunately neither Precision Air nor Air Tanzania,
under the current circumstances, are able to catch the “mice”. Our
two home based airlines are simply not up to the task of performing a
complimentary role to assist TTB achieve its goal of bringing about
the tourism revolution in this country.
Precision Air under Kenya Airways’ grip, with due respect, is not in a
good position to champion Tanzania’s tourism mission. Under Kenya
Airways short and medium term business model, Precision Air will
essentially remain a domestic and regional airline. It can only serve
at the beck and call of its strategic investor and this being the case
we are not likely to see a Precision Air’s tail anytime soon in places
like London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong let alone New York. Precision Air is
strategically a Kenya Airways’ feeder airline and all its distribution
network will always begin and end in Nairobi. To be candid, Precision
Air should have been partnered with a strategic investor with
Tanzania’s tourism interests at heart but not Kenya Airways. But I am
digressing because this is now water under the bridge.
In retrospect Tanzania lost a chance to turn Air Tanzania into a
tourism focused airline when it divested the “Wings of Kilimanjaro’ in
2003 by inviting South African Airways (SAA) as a “strategic investor”
in the national airline. In buying into Air Tanzania Company Limited
(ATCL), SAA was motivated by two objectives which had nothing to do
with tourism development in Tanzania. Firstly, SAA was at that time
working on what was known as “Networking Africa Strategy”. This was
premised on creating two mini hubs, one in Lagos, Nigeria and another
one in East Africa to hook up with a big hub in Johannesburg, South
Africa. Once the Nigerian connection fell through, ATCL could no
longer fit into SAA’s business model. Secondly, SAA was increasingly
becoming paranoid with Kenya Airways expansionist desires in Africa.
By coming into Tanzania, SAA was actually trying to forestall Kenya
Airways market consolidation in East Africa. Kenya Airways
outmaneuvered SAA by snapping up Precision Air and this was the last
nail in the coffin of SAA’s future interest in ATCL. The rest as they
say is history.
Tanzania’s desire to create a formidable and tourism driven airline
turned into a pipedream the very moment Air Tanzania wet to bed with
SAA. The first and foremost objective of SAA is to promote South
Africa’s tourism worldwide and Tanzania could only play second fiddle.
No wonder the South African Government had to quickly repossess SAA
from Swiss Air when it became crystal clear that the latter would not
survive the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack backlash on air
transportation. We are all witnesses of a major media blitz on
tourism during the 2010 world cup finals being mounted by SAA in
collaboration with the South African Tourism Board. This is the way to
go.
The separation of SAA and ATCL in 2006 was seen by many observers as a
god given chance for the Tanzania Government to press the “re-boot
button” and get a fresh start for the national airline. It was
envisaged that ATCL would be structured and painstakingly be nurtured
to gradually take its rightful role in the promotion of tourism in the
country. Regrettably the public at large is now dismayed and shocked
at how the government has been neglecting ATCL. It does not serve our
medium to long term development objectives to, slowly but surely, let
ATCL go six feet under just because it is a loss making airline. That
is being short sighted.
We are not even impressed, let alone optimistic, by the government’s
overzealousness on the so called ‘strategic investor” from faraway
China. There is nothing strategic in giving away an ailing airline
just because the government wants to cut its losses and run. This
investor will easily walk into ATCL, do some cosmetic restructuring
and when the airline starts generating profits sell it to yet another
“strategic investor”. This circus will likely go on and on. We have
seen this day light robbery happen in other sectors of the economy and
air transport is no exception. My unsolicited advice to the powers
that be is that the government should sober up and get its priorities
right and stop paying lip service to the air transport sector.
Let the country invest adequately in air transport infrastructure so
that this sector can keep pace with the developments in tourism
sector. Revamp ATCL by firstly stabilizing and consolidating it on the
domestic and regional scene. It is only when the national airline is
up and running profitably, that the government can then look for a
bona fide strategic investor who will help us propel ATCL onto the
international scene. When we reach this stage our national airline
will now become an important and dependable stakeholder that would be
able to participate fully in the development of tourism in this
country. Short of this, Tanzania’s tourism development strategy will
remain elusive.
E-mail: byasel@hotmail.com