DAR ES SALAAM, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania said Saturday it was in the process of establishing a beach management authority to improve beach tourism in the East African nation.
Hamisi Kigwangalla, minister of natural resources and tourism, said currently beach tourism was doing much better in Zanzibar than on mainland Tanzania.
"Beach tourism is not being promoted on mainland Tanzania with its abundant potential," he told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
He said Tanzania has decided to come up with strong strategies in order to efficiently explore available opportunities in beach tourism to boost the national economy.
Kigwangalla said the beach management authority will manage and improve all beaches to attract more tourists and investors.
A report released in June 2017 rated Tanzania's tourism industry as one of the fastest growing sectors in the country with figures showing a surge on tourist arrivals.
The 2016 International Visitors' Exit Survey Report indicated that the number of tourists who visited the country continued to rise.
The report was jointly compiled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, the Bank of Tanzania, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Immigration Department and the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism.
The report showed that Tanzania hosted at least 1.2 million tourists in 2016, compared to 1.1 million in 2015, which was an increase of 12 percent.
The report showed revenues from the tourism industry have been increasing year after year with 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 against 1.9 billion dollars in 2015.
Tourism has been Tanzania's largest foreign exchange earner since 2012, contributing an average of 2 billion dollars annually, which is equivalent to 25 percent of all exchange earnings, according to government data.
