Research by the WTTC found that travel and tourism contributed 11.7% to Tanzania’s GDP compared to a world average of round 10% and Tanzania’s travel and tourism GDP grew by 7.3% in 2018.
Travel and tourism contributed 10.7% of total employment in Tanzania in 2018, equating to 1.5 million jobs.
The WTTC also found that spend by international visitors constituted 28% of Tanzania’s total exports, indicating its importance as a foreign exchange earner.
The latest available tourism data indicates that Tanzania receives around 1.4 million foreign tourists per annum. The main source countries are Kenya (16%), the USA (7%), the UK (5%), India (5%) and Germany (5%).
Leisure tourists accounted for around 84% of all tourists, followed by business tourists at around 16%. Package Tour Tourists spent an average of USD 411 per person per night while FIT Tourists spent an average of USD 136 per person per night. The average length of stay was between 8 and 14 nights.
Tanzania’s domestic tourism industry is underdeveloped and contributes only around 33% to total tourism spending in Tanzania.
The hotel statistics are supplied by STR which has analysed and reported on data from 63,000 hotels, representing 8.4 million rooms in 180 countries.
The data from STR for January to May 2019 shows that hotels in Tanzania achieved an average room occupancy of 45.7%, which was a decline of 8.3% over the same period in 2018. An average room rate of US$127.58 was achieved, representing a decline of 1.2%. The decline in average room occupancy and average room rate resulted in a 9.4% decline in RevPAR to US$58.34.
