By Valentine Marc Nkwame

The sand must have gotten into her eyes! This is because the Tanzanian coastline, which is 300 miles longer, than that of its East African neighbor, Kenya is hardly utilised.

The 885 miles (1424 kilometers) long, coastline of Tanzania, is reported to be much undeveloped. Instead, the country has been focusing its ‘Beach tourism’ product packages in the islands of Mafia, Pemba and Zanzibar.

The issue of the potentially lucrative, yet undeveloped coastline, will be among the various challenges that the forthcoming Tanzanian Tourism Marketing Study will be addressing in efforts to ‘resurrect’ the country’s Tourism industry potential and double the current amount of visitors by 2010.

Experts are indicating that, as most statistics seem to show, the model of Tanzania’s Tourism Industry is built around a few iconic assets such as Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Zanzibar and Mt. Kilimanjaro, all of which (with exception of Zanzibar) are concentrated in the so-called "Northern Circuit"

The now saturated Northern Tourism Circuit, being pivoted at Arusha, is also said to be no longer producing the growth rates of 19 percent which was the average figure in the mid to late 1990s (1993 to 1998).

The coastline or precisely beach tourism according to experts here, could provide a fresh if not alternative packages of tourism that may boost the industry in the country. In Tanga for instance, the beaches there have of late been turned into plots where various religious houses, of different denominations have been mushrooming.

One of the local leaders of Pangani area, Dr. Muzzamil Mussa Kalokola said recently that his area has the most breathtaking sites in terms of attractive beaches and natural growth, but despite this tourism potential, the area is only experiencing the development of religious houses instead of revenue earning Hotels and Lodges.

Some of the reasons given to slow development of both the country’s coastline and other tourist attraction sites is that, Tanzania was not very open to tourism during its socialist era following independence. During mid-1990s the country recognized the potential of tourism to deliver rapid economic growth.

The challenge and the opportunity facing the country is that the current economic contribution is only utilizing a fraction of its potential. The threat to this potential is that the current business model for delivering
tourists (consumers) to Tanzania is built on vertically integrated package-oriented supply chains that rely heavily on international tour operators and hotel chains to both drive and supply demand based on the
offers in the market place.

This model empowers these international operators to control prices and volumes dependent on what they are offering and the inherent seasonal demand fluctuations in the source markets; the net result (supported by occupancy and entry statistics) is that with the current products being offered, during high seasons there is unmet demand and during low seasons there is not enough demand.