Economic Impacts of Covid-19 to the Tourism in Tanzania

Abstract

For several years, the tourism industry has been regarded as an important sector in many developing countries including Tanzania, with significant positive effects on the country's economic growth. Tourism has contributed lots to the economy of the country through foreign exchange earnings, job opportunities, eradication of poverty, provision of social services and infrastructure improvements.In 2019 there was an outbreak of a disease ( Corona Virus Disease) which was later announced as the Global pandemic in March 2020. The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new respiratory disease transmitted through direct contact with respiratory droplets of an infected person (which in most cases are generated when a person coughs or sneezes). Individuals can also be infected by touching contaminated surfaces and touching their face (especially their nose or mouth).The outbreak of COVID-19 started in December 2019 and over a period of two months it spread to the world, leading to a large number of deaths (About 5.75 MIL deaths by the end of January 2022).The disease causes respiratory illness with symptoms such as cough, fever, and trouble breathing in more extreme cases leading to death .As a measure of controlling the spread .Many countries are introducing lockdown protocols to avoid the infection chain of this emerging disease.The measures taken to control the spread of the pandemic are suspected to affect the tourism economy in Tanzania and this is because tourism in Tanzania is largely depending on the foreigners and the temporary travel restrictions for most foreign countries has been a setback in receiving many visitors as it was before. This is why the researcher believes that an in-depth analysis is required to measure the economic impact of Corona Virus on Tanzania's tourism industry focusing on total number of tourists arrivals, employment and the income generated from this sector during these times of the pandemic.The researcher conducted a study using both secondary and primary data source from tourism authorities like TANAPA( Tanzania National Parks), TTB ( Tanzania tourists board)  as well as general stakeholders like art and crafts designers, Tour guides, tour drivers, Tour operators and Hotel owners in the tourist areas. The main instrument used for the primary data was personal interviews with the small businesses in the tourism sector (artists, designers and sellers) in Tanzania. Online surveys were also added to explore "opinions about the economic impacts of Covid19 on the tourism industry. Both interview questions and surveys designed using a structured approach. And secondary data was collected from the articles provided by the government authorities as mentioned above. Qualitative data was obtained through online interviews which was conducted through zoom while quantitative data will be obtained through an online survey which was created in Survey monkey and being spread online to the targeted samples. The Data collected were entered, tabulated and analyzed using SPSS package and Microsoft Excel 2007. The econometrics model, Simple and Multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze quantitative data, in order to test statistically significance of variables in cooperating both descriptive and inferential statistics and quantitative and qualitative data were also presented in form of tables, charts and percentages through Microsoft excel and SPSS. The descriptive analysis showed that there are impacts of the global pandemic (Covid19) to the tourism industry in Tanzania. The pandemic has highly affected the number of tourist visiting Tanzania, according to the results from the research there has been (616,491 tourists) in 2020 compared to (1,527,230 visitors ) recorded in the year ending December 2019.Apart from that the total income from the tourism sector has dropped by 59.2% to USD 1,061.6 million as compared to 2019. Lastly Employment in this sector has dropped from the expected 623,000 to 146,000 by the end of 2020, according to the results from the research from March to May 2020 24.29% were jobless. Also the regression analysis output reveals that Covid-19 has reduced incoming number of tourists by 353.172 thousand per year (2019 – 2020),Employment contributions from the tourism sector has dropped by 14.15% which supports the null hypothesis for this study whereby we predicted the negative effect of Covid-19 on the employment contributions and the total earnings from this sector is less by USD227.533 million which proves right the null hypothesis H0 that the COVID19 effect has a negative impact on the total earnings. Also the regression results shows a decline of 2.3% of the share of tourism sector in the National GDP growth.The analysis also showed that there are measures suggested to mitigate the situation however there is still a problem as most of these measures are not yet effectively implemented which could delay its significance, therefore the tourism sector could lose its potential to boost the economic development of Tanzania. Due to these reasons the researcher provided recommendations and suggested areas for further research.

Keywords: Tourism, Covid19, Tanzania

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-5-04

Publication date:March 31^st 2022