Agents say tourists should be taken to national parks in Tanzanian-registered vehicles
Some local tour operators fear they could be driven out of business if Kenyan-registered tour vehicles are allowed to operate in Tanzania, particularly in the northern zone.
“They (Kenyan tour companies) are a threat. We will be rendered jobless because the majority of tourists come to Tanzania via Kenya,” said Mr Andrew Malalika, the director of Arusha-based Jackpot Tours and Safaris.
He said there was no legal prohibition of Kenyan-registered tourist vans taking visitors to Tanzania’s northern tourism circuit.
However, he argued, that a deliberate arrangement was made to have the Kenyan vehicles take tourists to their border where they would board local tour vans in order to safeguard Tanzanian firms.
He said Kenya was easily connected with the rest of the world with many direct flights landing in Nairobi daily with thousands of tourists, making it a preferred transit even for visitors heading to Tanzania.
He added that the decision by the Tanzania government to press for the exchange of the visitors at the border had enabled local tour firms to remain in business which would have been taken over or monopolised by Kenyans.
Mr Malalika said the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (Tato), a body of licensed tour operators based in Arusha, would continue to support the government in the row over the Kenyan tour operators.
He said consequences of opening the border for the Kenyan tour vans would be devastating for their business, although he and other tour operators welcomed “amicable consultations between the two countries to sort out the issue”.
He added that the re-opening of the Bolongoja border post to the tourists from the neighbouring country would be a further blow to Tanzania, an argument supported by Tato executive director Mustapha Akunaay, who said: “Even under the East African Community Common Market Protocol, the partner states have not agreed on the vehicles carrying tourists across the borders.”
However, Mr Akunaay, who is also a member of the EAC Sectoral Council on Tourism and Wildlife, admitted the matter was confusing apparently because Kenya and Tanzania have at times made short-lived decisions on the issue.
He said at one time, Kenya allowed tourist vans from Tanzania to take tourists there in order to impress upon the latter to reciprocate by allowing vans from Nairobi to make rounds in the tourist sites in northern Tanzania.
Consultations between the two countries and also within the EAC framework later nullified this, he explained, noting that despite the pressure from Kenya, Tanzanian park regulations demanded that tourists must be taken there in locally registered vans.
“For us, Bologonja is a foregone issue. It is an ecologically sensitive area which should not be allowed to have a high traffic of tourists and vehicles. That is why we have opposed the construction of a highway across the Serengeti,” he said.
He reiterated that the bilateral agreement between Tanzania and Kenya since the 1980s when the border was re-opened was to off-load tourists crossing borders.
The EAC has remained largely quiet on the matter. But one senior official of the Secretariat wondered last week that if the bilateral agreement between the two countries was the cause of the row.
“If that is the case, then it will take sometime for the EAC protocols to override bilateral agreements between the partner states or those involving them with other countries”, he said, declining further comments.
Recently, Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for EAC Affairs Phyllis Kandie said she will raise the alleged harassment of Kenyan tour operators bringing tourists to Tanzania at the regional level because the EAC Common Market Protocol guarantees free movement of people.
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