The structure of the tourism industry in Tanzania and its impact on the sector economic performance

This study has been conducted with the objectives of examining the structure of the tourism industry in Tanzania so as to identify the industry setup and its associated shortfalls which leads to Tanzania not benefiting much from the industry given the abundance of tourism resources the country is vested with. The study analyzes the economic impact of the Industry using various indicators such as government revenues, employment and foreign exchange generations. It analyzes the players in the industry, the major services, the ownership pattern of the firms providing these services and the distribution of the revenues generated by the industry. The finding shave established that the structure of the industry is dominated by local investment but the foreign owned firms are the major selling units. This setup facilitate the outflow of the tourism revenues. The high need for FDI which resulted from the fact that tourism services require higher investment of which most of the developing countries like Tanzania does not have the financial capacity to invest in the major obstacle. in order to reduce this dependence we recommend that local investors be encouraged to invest more in the industry and that diversification on the tourism product should be improved to increase the product line.