susiesan

Effective July 1 and with very little warning Tanzania just hiked the fees to visit and stay in their national parks. Example: Serengeti park fee $60, concession fee to stay in the park at a lodge or camp $50. That's $110 a day per person for the "privilege" of visiting and staying in the Serengeti. I had a 10 day safari for 2 planned so this adds an extra $2000 to the overall trip.

Tanzania has just put themselves on the list of countries ripping off "rich" foreign tourists. I am going to rethink my safari plans for next year. I may go to Kenya instead. Same animals, lower cost lodging, lower fees and taxes.

Economics 101:whatever you tax more of you get less of. Tanzania will begin to see a drop in visitors when word of this gets out. Anyone with a safari currently planned and paid for should check with their SO to ensure no surprises of having to cough up more money when they get there. Hotel operators and others involved on tanzanian tourism are not too happy with this:

https://wolfganghthome.wordpress.com...survival/#8230

RustyC

They're doing that PER DAY?! That would be way over-the-top and would add enough cost to block a lot of people. Would bet that would cause a real drop in tourism.

You could make some case for doing it per-trip IF the money went to construction or anti-poaching or other efforts, but of course in countries like that people have no confidence any of it does. Heck, even in the U.S. there's no guarantee against diverting "user fees" to general revenue , but at least there's no two-tier pricing.

susiesan

Yes, those are the fees per person per day. So for a typical one week northern Tanzanian safari for 2 people i that's $1400 in park fees and taxes before the costs of the safari and lodging are added. I had Mal ways heard that Tanzania was one of the most expensive places to visit and now I know it is. This will backfire on them. There are plenty of other African countries to go on safari and see the animals.

Perhaps after a few months of declining visits by tourists they will reconsider. This happen with Vietnam last year. In june 2016 they took the visa feee for Americans from $25 to$160. Then there was a massive drop off in Americans visiting Vietnam. 6 months later they reversed the policy and reset back to the $25 that had been in place for years.

MrAndMrsJones

Their snap introduction of VAT on previously exempt tourist actives, the same week as the Brexit Sterling landslide, was a particular fun time to be in the travel industry!

Their $500 visa if you want to do voluntary work was a very interesting move too I thought!

Sadly it doesn't surprise me.

BOSTravels

You can see animals in the Chicago Zoo for free

Meneer Guggenheimer

President Magafuli will not lower the prices as he has stated that he would rather have 500.000 tourist paying higher fees then 1.000.000 tourist paying lower fees.

Tanzania must now be the most expensive African Country to visit...

johan rebel

From a conservation perspective he has a very valid point.

Johan

Meneer Guggenheimer

Sadly he has nothing with conservation as he is building a dam in the Selous, wants to build the road true the Serengeti and he has stated that Mahale Mahale mountains could be logged as there are monkeys in Gombe to.

Also he forgets about one thing. 1.000.000 tourist employ more local people then 500.000....

johan rebel

"Tanzania requires more than 30,000 hotel beds for it to meet accommodation demand for increasing numbers of holidaymakers. Currently, the country has about 38,000 hotel beds but demand for 70,000 beds.

According to the acting Director of Tourism, Deogratius Mdamu, the industry is growing rapidly, resulting in overbooking of hotels during peak period – between July and December.

The challenge comes in the wake of a rise in international tourist arrivals. Last year, international tourist arrivals to Tanzania increased to 1,284,279 up from 1,137,182 the previous year."

Source

Johan

CanuckFlyHigh

Supply and Demand. I would be perfectly OK with this, if I knew the money was going to a good cause. Sadly, I highly doubt it is.

Meneer Guggenheimer

The problem is that the government of Tanzania and especially TTB (Tanzania Tourist Board) mis market the country. They should have a dynamic park fee structure to spread the demand. Also emphasise on the southern circuit and not on the Serengeti. I work in Ndutu (south of the Serengeti) and often in the dry season (very good for safari!) there is no one around.

Problem with Tanzania is that it does not realise it's own potential. It is a country full of corruption and greed and sadly in the last 20 years it actually has gotten worse. Magafuli is one the one hand good as he is fighting the establishment but he will wreck the country as he is to busy trying to become the next Mugabe.

Also the tourist numbers are totally ........ as they count all local regional traffic to.. and those do not go to the parks or climb mountains or visit spice islands as it is to expensive for them to. The number of tourist who actually spend hard currency is probably half of it.

susiesan

it doesn't help Tanzania's reputation when safari operators abruptly go bankrupt leaving customers out thousands and thousands of dollars and the government offers no help to the people scammed in getting their money back.

http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/hom...adian-tourists

This is being discussed on TA. The company that went under was called it Stated in Africa. Hopefully no one reading here had a safari booked with them.

I am trying to find a safari operator for my planned safari Sept. 2018 and am asking all possible companies for a copy of their current business license and registrations.

Meneer Guggenheimer

The problem in Tanzania is that a lot of small companies exist and the margins are very slim. If something goes wrong it very difficult to recoup. Of course fraud is there to.

This is a list which can be handy
http://www.tanzaniatourism.com/en/op...tour-operators

Try to get a reference from people and check their Facebook page. That gives also a lot of information!

I can give you a few names of good (but more expensive) touroperators if you want. But PM me then.

Have a great holiday next year. Tanzania even with ALL it's problems is a great country with very nice people!

johan rebel

Just as in South Africa.

A small-time Lesotho trade who enters SA weekly to purchase goods and smuggle them back into his country counts as 50 "tourists" on an annual basis.

Johan