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| From the Parliament |
From DAILY NEWS Reporters in DODOMA, 15th November 2011 @ 16:50, Total Comments: 0, Hits: 130
THE government has refuted claims that Kenya is distorting information by promoting Mount Kilimanjaro as one of its top tourist attractions, the National Assembly was told on Monday.
Rather, the Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources Ezekiel Maige said, the actual fact is that Kenya tour operators have been luring tourists by saying that while in their country they can have a clear view of the highest peak in Africa as well.
"This is a fact that we cannot avoid, the mountain can also be clearly seen while in Kenya," he said, when answering a question by Ali Juma Haji (Chaani - CCM).
The legislator had wanted the government to issue a statement against Kenya which he accused of trying to hoodwink tourists into thinking Africa's highest mountain is in Kenya instead of Tanzania.
He also wanted to know which steps the government was taking to promote Mount Kilimanjaro and counter the distorted messages from Kenya, so that tourists could fly directly to Tanzania instead of landing in Nairobi first before travelling by road to Tanzania.
"There is a difference between viewing the mountain from a distance and scaling the mountain. It should be remembered that there are six routes to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, which are Marangu, Rongai, Mweka, Machame, Londrosi and Umbwe - all of them are in Tanzania," Mr Maige said.
The minister added that there was no way any tourist would climb Mount Kilimanjaro without passing through Tanzania, insisting that Mount Kilimanjaro was in Tanzania and that Kenya has no problem with it.
However, Minister Maige admitted that Kenya is far ahead of Tanzania in marketing and promotion of its tourism potentials.
"Kenya are advanced in terms of aviation services compared to Tanzania, this is why Nairobi remains the hub of tourism in the East African region. We (Tanzania) will, however, continue to improve our infrastructures and other services such as air transport, in a bid to compete with Kenya in the business because potentially we are more blessed with tourists' attractions as compared to our neighbours," he said.
He said the government through the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) is widely promoting the country's tourists attractions including Mount Kilimanjaro, citing an example of marketing campaign in London, UK that promotes the country as top tourist destination in the world.
Tanzania is using the world's famous English Premier League to promote its tourists destinations.
On why Mount Kilimanjaro missed out of the world's new seven wonders, Mr Maige lamented lack of enough votes noting further that access to internet denied many Tanzanians the opportunity to vote for Mount Kilimanjaro.
"We cannot deny the fact that we started late the voting process as compared to other countries, which were lucky to be nominated," he said.
