Construction of a new five-star hotel in Zanzibar is set to complete December this year, developers have said, bringing a ray of hope in a country where shortage of world-class accommodation facilities is thwarting tourism development plans.Tanzania is in big demand for more investors in the hospitality industry in order to match the growing number of tourists.
Compared to neighbouring Kenya, Tanzania has less in hotel investments whereas it has 174 registered and licenced tourist class hotels, offering 11,568 rooms.
The Zanzibar Ocean Wave Hotel & Resort will cost $25M and will be situated in Mbweni in the island famous for its historic clover.Blue Pearl Hotel and Apartments chairman Rustam Merani told the press recently that Tanzania will have 171 rooms more by the end of this year, thanks to the firm’s massive investment drive.“We’re building a 5-star hotel at Mbweni in Zanzibar. It is going to cost $25 million and will be known as the Zanzibar Ocean Wave Hotel & Resorts. It’s construction started two years ago,” he said.
The hotel capacity in the entire Tanzania and Zanzibar is a hundred and seventy four facilities under official operation for both local and tourism use, with an aggregate capacity of eleven thousand five hundred and sixty eight rooms.
A 1976 survey revealed that the greater part of the Hotel industry in Tanzania belongs to town-based hotels in comparison to holiday resorts. The findings also showed that though occupancy margins between the two kinds of accommodation destinations were equal, the operating expenditure for urban facilities exacerbated even as owners checked in returns.
Despite this, urban hotels still generate greater revenue to the Tanzanian economy than the resorts which are comparatively easier to run but risky to invest on.
Debates have abounded on whether operators should find a break-even point between the town and holiday facility by either clinging to improving the stakes of the holiday resort or giving a stimulus on the more predictable yet expensive town facilities.
Though Tanzania has top-notch tourist circuits ranging from snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro to the sandy beaches in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, it still lacks a sufficient number of holiday facilities that live up to global competitiveness.
The year by year statistics on mainland hotels with a staff base of above thirty workers, giving attention to the level of occupancy and the nightly beds that can meet immediate occupancy needs, showed the following results between December 2009 and December 2010.
*Of the 109 major hotels that were under spotlight, the 2009 results showed a bed capacity of 7938. With bed-nights of 246, 078 on offer, some 90, 664 persons were accommodated with 43,146 of which being foreign.
* The December 2010 statistics climbed a notch higher to 150 hotels with 251, 472 bed-nights on offer, with 91, 236 persons visiting of which 43, 697 were foreign.
* Both surveys took part over 31 days.
The notable factor in the above display is that occupancy margin depreciated by 0.2% over the two December antitheses.
Roughly, the international visitor remained almost constant, a major reason perhaps being lack of superb facilities for holiday accommodation.
With the building of the new Zanzibar Ocean Wave Hotel & Resort, Tanzania will be improving its bubbling hotel potential in both the mainland and the oceanfront.
Nevertheless, currently Tanzania is the leading tourist attraction in Africa most likely beating South Africa, because of rampant robberies and thefts of tourists property in South Africa.
After the election violence in Kenya, thousands of tourists shunned Kenya making it fall behind Tanzania in tourist numbers.However, that did not significantly affect the transit tourists at the Nairobi International Airport.
Nairobi remains the connecting center for many airlines to and from Africa hence you will find thousands of passengers crammed at the transit waiting for connecting flights.
Tourists to Egypt and Tunisia, declined tremendously because of the demonstrations and the subsequent violence.Whereas Morocco, Algeria and Mali lost thousands of tourists because of threats from islamic fundamentalists.
As for Nigeria, the negative publicity reports caused by attacks,abductions and deaths on innocent civilians by crazy islamists -Boko Haram, have driven tourists off the country. The rampant scams originating form Nigeria scare many would be tourists.
Nevertheless, Nigerians in the diaspora are the largest number of tourists to their country.Thousands of diaspora Nigerians land at Murtala Mohammed International Airport daily visiting there home country.When i visited Nigeria sept 2012, i noticed that there were very few connecting flights from Murtala Mohammed International Airport to other countries compared to Nairobi International Airport.
Nigeria you are a super power in Africa yes. But you need to rebrand yourself. I hope Goodluck Jonathan and other Nigerians are listening.
Paul Okia
Happy Tours Africa
info@happytoursug.com
www.happytoursug.com
