Promoting Tanzania's Tourism in the UK

How Tanzania Governments can promote tourism to UK?

The means that will enable Tanzania to promote and market tourism to UK tourists, and how tourism opportunities can be exploited to attract more UK visitors.

Table of contents (Jump to)

Introduction

Literature Review 

Chapter 1: Tanzania and Tourism

Chapter 2: The Sustainable Debate

Chapter 3: Tourism and Governments

Chapter 4: Tourism and Marketing

Methodology

1. Research Philosophy

1.1 How do we know what is valid?

2. Research Approach

3. Research Strategies

3.1 Case Study

4. Time Horizons

5. Data Collections Methods

5.1 Sampling

5.2 Market Research & Questionnaire

5.3 Questionnaire Design

6. Data Analysis

7. Research Ethics

8. Politics of Access

Findings

Interpretation of Findings

Conclusion

References

Bibliography

Appendix 

Appendix II

Appendix III

Introduction

Tanzania is situated just south of the equator in East Africa. The mainland lies between the areas of the great lakes: Victoria, Tanganyika and Malawi, with the Indian Ocean on its’ coastline to the east (Africa Guide Online 1). Tanzania has frontiers with the following countries; to the North; Kenya and Uganda, to the West: Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo, to the South: Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, to the East: Indian Ocean (Tanzanian Government Online1). The country is also the home to the Kilimanjaro which is with its 19,340ft, the highest mountain in Africa (Africa Guide Online 1). Dodoma is the political capital with a population of 300,000, while Dar es Salaam is the countries commercial capital (Tanzanian Government Online 1).

Tanzania has three main climatic areas; the coastal area and immediate hinterland, with tropical conditions and an average of 26.6°C (80°) and which is high in humidity; the central plateau, which is hot and dry and the third region is the semi-temperate highland areas, with a healthy and cool climate (Africa Guide Online 2). The hot periods are between November and February and the coldest areas between May and August (Tanzanian Government Online 1). In regards to when the best season for tourists to visit is, writers seem not to have found a consensus; some suggest the standard tourist season is January and February, as the hot dry weather at this time of the year is generally considered to be the most pleasant (Lonely Planet Online). While others argue that the best times to travel is between July through to March for the Northern and Southern parts of Tanzania as well as Zanzibar. And for the Western area the months from May through to March are most suitable for tourist activities (Tanzania Online).

Tanzania belongs to the poorest countries in the world. In 2005 the country has a population of 36,766,356 and a population growth rate of 1.83% (2005 est.), while 36% (in 2002 est.) of the population is below poverty line (CIA Online). However, there are various numbers in regards to this subject, and some of them even claim that it is 50% of the population which lives below the poverty line (Tanzanian Government Online 1). And although the numbers are still shocking, there seems to have been some improvement in terms of the poverty in Tanzania in the past 20 or so years. Since in 1988, according to IFDA, there were nearly 12 million rural Tanzanians, or 60 per cent of the rural population, living below the poverty line (IFDA, 1992, Cooksey, cited in Bierman and Moshi, 1997:77).

The population in the mainland consist of 99% native Africans (of which 95% are Bantu consisting of more than 130 tribes). And the other 1% consists of Asians, Europeans and Arabs. However, in Zanzibar the mix of populations differs, there are much more Arabs, some native African, and then mixes between the two (CIA Online).

This again is mirrored in the religion represented, in the mainland its 30% Christians, 35% Muslims and 35% indigenous beliefs, where as in Zanzibar it’s more than 99% Muslim (CIA Online).

The official language is Kiswahili or Swahili (called Kiunguja in Zanzibar). English is the official primary language of commerce, administration and higher education. But Arabic is naturally widely spoken in Zanzibar, and on top there are various further local languages all over Tanzania, naturally with more than 130 different tribes (CIA Online).

The GDP composition by sector looks as followed: agriculture: 43.2%, industry: 17.2%, services: 39.6% (2004 est.). The economy heavily depends on agriculture (coffee, sisal, tea, cotton, pyrethrum, cashew nuts, tobacco, cloves, corn, wheat, cassava (tapioca), bananas, fruits, vegetables; cattle, sheep and goats), accounting for almost half of GDP (85% of exports, employing 80% of work force). The official aid flow in 2000 was 1,044.6million USD, which was 11.6% share of GDP in the year 2000. (Ellis and Freeman, 2005)

Tanzania seems stable under the Mkapa president leadership, however, political paralysis and deep rifts between minorities seem to have manifested themselves and are unlikely to disappear within the near future. Also is the support of the opposition (against Mkapa) growing, leading in 2001 to massive rallies and sometimes even violence.

The economy received massive boosts in 2001 with the opening of the Bulyanuhu gold mine and in 2004 with the opening of the Songosongo natural gas field.

Tanzania was also one of the countries affected by the recent December 2004 Tsunami. However, thankfully the government had enough time to react to the warnings, and thus evacuate most of the area, leaving “only” 13 killed (Lonely Planet Online).

Please see Appendix I on page 32&33 for a brief outline of the earlier history of Tanzania.

The following dissertation will begin by looking at the current status and issues in Tanzania’s tourism industry. The second chapter will look at the very timely issue of sustainability in tourism and in regards to Tanzania and the also the UK consumers attitude towards it. The third chapter will examine the role of governments in the tourism process. In the fourth chapter the marketing tools for a tourism destination will be analysed. This is then followed by the methodology, which will explain the methods and methodology used for this dissertation. Then the findings are presented, and interpreted. Finally a conclusion will bring to a close the dissertation. Furthermore, naturally, there are the references, bibliography and some appendices.

The dissertation will by no means be exhaustive, due to the time, word, monetary and access restraints. It is merely designed to give some ideas towards a possible way of a better promotion of Tanzania in regards to the UK market. Literature Review

Literature Review

Chapter 1: Tanzania and Tourism

 Before looking at what the means for promoting tourism are, firstly an analysis of the current state of tourism and its problems in Tanzania is necessary.

Wangwe et al. (1998:67) write on tourism possibilities: “Tanzania is blessed with many attractions for tourism including wildlife, Mount Kilimanjaro, and beautiful beaches. There are also many cultural and historical attractions as well, such as traditional ngomas, and Zanzibar and other coastal towns whose sights show the interaction of East Africa with many ancient civilizations including the Romans, the Indians and the Middle East”.

Tourism in Tanzania is a fairly new development. In fact “for nearly three decades after Tanzania’s independence, tourism kept a very low profile. However, the National Tourism Policy, which was put in place in 1991, and the government policy of trade and economic liberalization have had a positive impact on the acceleration of tourism development”. And “As of 1994, the National Park system had expanded to eleven, namely, Serengeti, Ruaha, Ngorongoro, Mikumi, Tarangire, Katavi, Kilimanjaro, Rubondo, Manyara, Arusha and Gombe Stream”. Also “ In 1994 about 262,000 tourists visited Tanzania” (Wangwe et al. 1998:67)”.

In fact, tourism is Tanzania’s fastest growing sector, however still counting for less than 10% of GDP (Author Unknown, Nov.2002). And tourism is also Tanzania’s second largest foreign exchange earner (Author Unknown, 01/02/1998). Pollock (cited in Fennell, 2003) writes that tourism has started to be an important part in the economy of Tanzania. However, the importance of game conservations has been recognized nationally as well as internationally, standing in direct contrast to tourism development. And also although tourism may help to fund conservation and development, the reliance on it can be problematic due to the fickle nature of the market (Smith and Duffy, 2003).

However, the tourism industries mission statement which forms the basis of the tourism planning policy is to: “.develop quality tourism that is ecologically friendly to the conservation and restoration of the environment and its people’s culture” (Author Unknown, Tanzania Government Online 2).

Nevertheless, National Parks are already often overcrowded, and this is developing into a serious problem (Hein, 1997). The Sopa Lodges in Tanzania are fully booked throughout the summer, and Agent Nina Wennersten of Woodcliff Lake says that Tanzania’s tourism has doubled in each of the last two years (Ruggia, 2004). Also the Africa Safari Co’s chief executive Susie Potter said that the year 2005 was shaping up to be a great year for them (Travel trade, 17/11/2004). Smulian (2005) writes that “agents should advise visitors hoping to see the stunning wildlife of Tanzania’s national parks to book early this year, after the countries best-ever season saw overbooking at lodges last summer”. All in all it seems that Tanzanians tourism market is booming. The UK is in fact the largest tourism market for Tanzania, says director of the Tanzania Tourist Board, Peter Mwenguo. He also notes in 2004 that the tourism industry in Tanzania is booming now (Ruggia, 2004).

And although environmental efforts seem to be taken seriously, such as the Serena Hotel Chain in Tanzania, which operates to environmental standards that are among the world’s best (Middleton and Hawkins, 1998). Nevertheless, the country is lacking in adequate infrastructure and there seems to be no multi-sectoral approach, nor has the development of tourism been very coordinated (Wangwe et al. 1998:68).

This then leaves the government with various difficulties in developing a sustainable tourism policy, and writers such as Schmale (1993) give examples of Tanzania in regards to the socio-political and economical environment and the challenges local organizations face. For example there is the problem of the socio-cultural impact on the Maasai people whose traditional territory includes the National Parks. “Employment for the Maasai living around these parks was limited to posing for photographs and selling craft souvenirs (Bachman, 1988, cite in Hall and Lew 1998:63)”.

Tanzania targets high-spending tourists and the steep rise in tourist numbers have increased the pressure on services (Author Unknown, Nov.2002). The country is thus opening up opportunities along the Indian Ocean shoreline (Author Unknown, Nov.2002) namely the CC Africa lodges on less-visited parts of Tanzania (Dunford, 2004).

However, Vesely (2000) comments that there are also plenty of possibilities for not so wealthy visitors to go to Tanzania, and that there are well developed camp-sites, tented camps and motel style facilities.

However, in the past eight years, there also has been some negative news on Tanzania. Just recently there were two British students shot in a violent ambush on the Island of Pemba in Tanzania (Dennis, 2004). The Foreign and the Commonwealth Office immediately updated the travel advice, since last month there was already a fatal shooting of a British tourist and a fatal shooting of a British businessman in Tanzania. And tour operators do believe that this will hit tourist numbers in a negative way (Dennis, 2004). Unfortunately, these incidents have not been the first once, and there have been events already in earlier years. In 1998, US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists, naturally resulting in heavy cancellations from US tourists at the time (Berger, 1998). Furthermore were there some political violence incidents in Zanzibar in 2001, which spoiled the reputation of Tanzania as a stable and progressive democracy (Vesely, 2001). One could expect and argue that all of these incidents had negative impacts on the tourism in Tanzania, and thus a special part in Chapter 4: Tourism and Marketing will be allocated toward the marketing of a destination in crisis.

Chapter 2: The Sustainable Debate

The above chapter has outlined that Tanzania’s tourism industry is performing very well, and that indeed the UK tourists are their prime market. In fact, there were even overbooking last year, due to such high demand. Consequently, there are new resorts opening up and it is questionable to whether one should further exploit the tourism opportunities, in the light of sustainable development and tourism.

Although modern mass tourism only appeared post war 1950’s (Weaver and Oppermann, 2000 and Winpenny, 1991), the results that uncontrolled exploitation of tourism opportunities has shown is catastrophic, as can be seen on examples such as the Spanish coast (Richards and Hall, 2000). Thus unsurprisingly, sustainability is arguably the new fad word in the tourism industry, since many destinations now face environmental, socio-cultural and even economical damages caused by the chaotic growth of (mass) tourism. In fact; “There are examples from almost every country in the world, where tourism development has been identified as being the main cause of environmental degradation” (Lickorish and Jenkins, 1999:85).

Therefore, the practice of sustainable development is of crucial importance. The definition offered at the Globe ’90 Conference in Vancouver for sustainable tourism and development was as followed; “Sustainable tourism development is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that we can fulfil economic, social and aesthetic needs while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems” (Tourism Stream Action Committee 1990, Ledbury cited in Hein, 1997:30).

Tourism’s impacts can be divided into three elements; economical, environmental and socio-cultural (Coltman, 1989). Thus, those are the three headings that not only the sustainable debate, but also other outcomes should be measured at. Therefore, according to sustainable tourism, three points have to be achieved through tourism development:

1. Increasing economic value of tourism
2. An improvement in the life quality of people
3. Protection and responsible use of natural resources (Keyser, 2002)

And also consumers are responding to this new sustainability “trend”. In fact, mainstream consumer preferences are being influenced by this movement for responsible forms of tourism (Goodwin cited in Jenkins et al. 2002). And Butcher (2003) notes on an important shift to a growth in ethical consumption. Thus, sustainability also indirectly influences the economic impact, in terms of consumer choices for sustainability.

Especially our target market, the UK, seems to show an interest in criticism of tourism development and “bad tourism and tourists” (Allen and Brennan, 2005). Therefore, sustainability development and tourism should be practiced by the Tanzania government and tourism industry. Not only because it will help to ensure that the environment will not get too spoiled and thus leave good prospects for future tourism business, but also because it might arguably be seen as favourable by the UK target market.

Chapter 3: Tourism and the Government

The involvement of governments in the process of tourism promotion arguably varies in levels depending on the country. And thus the question arises whether and when governments should be involved, not only in the marketing, but in the business of tourism.

Jeffries (2001) argues that due to the cooperation and coordination required, due to the complexity of the industry and its products, debatably only the government has the authority and apparatus to organize such successfully. Furthermore does he outline that “in very poor developing countries (such as Tanzania) governments are encouraged by aid programmes to use tourism not only as a tool to combat poverty but as a means for encouraging and financing biodiversity and nature conservation, a matter of considerable interest in donor communities” (Jeffries, 2001:106).

Therefore, it could be suggested that the governments involvement seems of crucial importance to the success of Tanzania’s tourism future, but also to the country in itself in terms of sustainability on the economic, environmental and socio-cultural aspect.

In fact, the Tanzanian government seems to have recognized such, and is highly concerned with improving the infrastructure quality and diversity, ease of destination entry formalities, revision of applicable taxes and maintenance of peace, stability and security, regulation of foreign exchange regulations and controls (Tanzania Government Online 2).

Chapter 4: Tourism and Marketing

“. marketing is a strategic process that aims to fit the resources of a destination to the opportunities existing in the market” (Godfrey and Clarke, 2000:125). Following the thought of this quote, one could postulate that marketing is finding a way to identify the market which will be interested in the resources available.

Before the promotion of the destination starts, a marketing plan should be established.

The marketing process which results in a marketing plan should focus on answering four questions:

• Where are we now? [situation analysis; PEST and Porter’s 5forces and SWOT];
• Where do we want to be? [marketing objectives];
• How do we get there? [strategies and tactics];
• How do we know if we’ve got there? [monitoring; before-and-after research, marketing productivity ratios, evaluation and control].

(Godfrey and Clarke, 2000)

This should then lead to 2 different marketing plans, a 3-5 year strategic marketing plan, setting the outlines for the activities and the directions for the annual plans. And the annual or the tactical marketing plan which should have detailed actions and methods for monitoring achievement (Godfrey and Clarke, 2000).

Then it is important to look at the consumer behaviour. The consumer buying process can be broken down into five steps: Problem Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase, Post-Purchase Evaluation or behaviour (Dibb et al., 2001 and Kotler et al. 1993:47). It is debatably of crucial importance to understand the behaviour of the consumers, as especially during the information search and the evaluation of alternatives stages they are faced with so many possible tourism destinations. Pike (2004) argues that consumers nowadays have more product choices but less decision making time than ever before. Therefore underlining that the means in which the consumer comes in contact with the marketing effort of Tanzania, arguably needs to be memorable and favourable. Pike (2004) further outlines this by arguing that the size of a consumer’s decision set of destinations will be limited to approximately four, and destinations not included in that set, are much less likely to be chosen.

Next the market segment for Tanzania needs to be identified. “A market segment can be defined as ‘a subgroup of the total consumer market whose members share common characteristics relevant to the purchase or use of the product’” (Holloway, 2004: 116).

There are different types of segmentation; geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation and behavioural segmentation (Kotler et al. 1999). Due to the given constraints, it is impossible to undertake serious market segmentation in this dissertation.

After the segmentation has been decided upon, the destination needs positioning. The successful implementation needs to follow these seven steps.

1. Identify the target market in travel context
2. Identify the competitive set of destinations in the target market and travel context.
3. Identify the motivation/benefits sought by previous visitors and non-visitors.
4. Identify perception of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the competitive set of destinations.
5. Identify opportunities for differentiated positioning.
6. Select and implement the position.
7. Monitor the performance of the positioning strategy over time.

(Pike, 2004:117)

The positioning elements consist of the destination name, a symbol and a slogan (Pike, 2004). The name, in a case for a tourist destination is naturally already given, However, the Tanzanian government should think of a creative symbol that will stay in people’s mind. Also (according to Pike, 2004) does Tanzania not have a slogan yet, therefore a catchy slogan such as “I New York” should be developed.

All of those efforts will help in creating a brand image. A brand is more than a symbol; it’s a promise to the consumer, and thus represents more than a logo (Pike, 2004). And since holidays are a high-risk purchase, due to the fact that the tourist can neither directly observe what is being bought nor try it out (Goodall and Ashworth, 1988), it seems of vital importance that a strong brand image is developed. And brand loyalty can be easily measured by repeat and referral customers (Pike, 2004).

There are three marketing strategies that lead to commercial success; low cost leadership, differentiation (high added value) and focus (specialization to uniqueness) (Holloway, 2004). From the above analysis it could be argued that Tanzania does not rely on low cost leadership, but rather on a differentiation strategy. In fact; “Differentiation is the path chosen by most brand leaders in any industry” (Holloway, 2004:270).

The next step should be to communicate information and messages to the public, which can be done through four different ways; advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity (Holloway, 2004).

The advertising can take numerous forms and can vary from persuasive to reminder advertising, variations from high to low budget, from a mood or image to a fantasy or a lifestyle message, from newspaper to television, direct mail to radio and magazines to the timing of the media (and many more) (Kotler et al., 1999).

The success can be measured in the communication effect through copy testing. The pre-testing through the direct rating should naturally be done prior to the release of the advertising. And for post-testing an advertisement, recall tests or recognition tests can be used (ibid.). The sales effect should be measured, which however proves a rather difficult task. Although there often is a relationship between promotional spend on sales, the exact correlation is almost impossible to establish, due to so many other influences (Holloway, 2004).

The RETOSA (Regional Tourism Organization of Southern Africa) marketing research and promotions manager Francis Mfune says that they need to target the trade, especially wholesalers if they want to promote their tourist destinations well (Ruggia, 2004, II). Therefore, it could be advised that the government tries and establish good relations with wholesalers in the UK.

The public relation is another promotional tool for the government of Tanzania. However, arguably not always are the public relations controllable. As can be demonstrated on the case were some tourism officials of Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia blaming the negative media publicity which portrays Africa as a terrorist continent, for the business loss in their tourism industries (Verde, 2003).

The PR activities vary from press relations to product publicity, corporate communication, lobbying and counselling (Kotler et al. 1999). The Tanzanian government could use PR promotion in the form of publications, special events, news, and speeches (ibid.)

And as for promoting Tanzania under the current problems with crime and terrorism, there are some steps to marketing of a destination in crisis:

Step 1: Identify the event/problem as either a crisis or a hazard

Step 2: Establish a crisis management team (Media and PR, relations with the travel industry in source markets, destination response coordination with the local tourism industry, liaison with local and regional tourism authorities and foreign governments, governments advisories and travel insurance and alliances with tour operators, airlines and hospitality industry representatives servicing the destination in source markets)

Step 3: Promoting the destination during and after a crisis

Step 4: Monitoring recovery and analysing the crisis experience

(Beirman, 2003).

Methodology

In the methodology, it will be outlined how the research was conducted, which designs and methods were used as well as how the data was collected and an explanation of why the particular methods were used. The research process onion (please see Appendix II on page 34) developed by Saunders et al. (2003; 83) was used as guidance and hopefully helps elucidate research method and methodology used to the reader.

1. Research philosophy

The research philosophy is represented by two different corners of thought; the realist (objectivist) and the relativist (subjectivist) (Saunders et al., 2003).

Realist: positivistic, a stance of a natural scientist, believes in quantitative data and external realities. Relativist: interpretivism, believes in qualitative research and the social construction of reality (Saunders et al., 2003).

It places a rather difficult task to identify which philosophy the research was based on, as there are parts of both corners apparent. However, the realist corner arguably was more present. To further examine the different philosophies, it would be advisable to look at realism and relativism in the view of ontology and epistemology. Ontology is described as the “assumptions we make about the nature of reality” (Easterby-Smith et al. 2002: 31), while epistemology is the “general set of assumptions about the best ways of inquiring into the nature of the world” (Easterby-Smith et al. 2002: 31).

1.1 How do we know what is valid

During the first part of the dissertation, the research was focused on secondary research, including some quantitative data. The disparity between some of the research makes it difficult to depict a clear picture. The realist perspective sees validity in whether the research procedures can supply an accurate illustration of reality (Easterby-Smith, 2002).

Arguably this proves almost impossible in the country of Tanzania, due to the differences between Tribes, as well as due to the lack of formally conducted research, and the disparity of locations and conditions of living standards of people. However, for the secondary research conducted about the theories of tourism, sustainability and marketing, a reliable picture should have been depicted on the various theories and concepts. All the secondary data was gathered from books, academic journals, online databases such as Ebscohost.com, newspaper articles and online resources.

As for the primary research, only a small sample of research was conducted, making the reliability of this preposterous. However, the primary research was mainly used to tests some of the marketing theories, to elucidate which efforts would be worth further considering. The reliability of the research is arguably more positive, as it is unlikely that the respondents would have given different answers to a different person. The generalizability of the research is limited however, although it might give insights into countries with a similar tourism package, the research was made solely with Tanzania in mind.

2. Research Approach

There are two different research approaches, one is theory testing, namely the deductive approach, and one is theory building, namely the inductive approach (Saunders et al., 2003). Again, it is most difficult to apply one approach only to the research. In the first part, the theory is outlined, and in the primary research, it is tested. However, by no means can it be claimed that this dissertation has build a theory, and thus it is arguably more of a deductive research approach.

3. Research Strategies

“By a research strategy, we simply mean a general orientation to the conduct of business research” (Bryman and Bell, 2003:25). Bryman and Bell however focused the research strategy on the distinction between researches being conducted through quantitative or qualitative data. Whereas Saunders et al. (2003) see the research strategy more as a general plan of how one goes about answering the research question.

3.1 Case Study

Daymon and Holloway (2002) describe the case study research as a rigorous examination which uses multiple sources of evidence of a single entity, which is fixed by time and place. It is best used when investigations into the how and why are done. Saunders et al. (2003) see case studies as investigations into a timely topic, using numerous sources of evidence and collection methods including; questionnaires, observations, interviews and documentary analysis.

In the first part of the dissertation, the focus was on giving a clearer picture of the product to be marketed. Because arguably, if one does not know what it is that has to be marketed, one can not identify the means required to market the destination successfully.

Therefore, firstly the country Tanzania was introduced, then the state of tourism in Tanzania, followed by a brief outline of the timely issue of sustainability in tourism. Furthermore there is the chapter about tourism and the government. Then the marketing means we