Determinants of international tourism receipts in Tanzania

This study investigates the Determinants of International Tourism Receipts in Tanzania. The specific objectives of the study were to examine the main determinants of International Tourism Receipts in Tanzania; to measure elasticities of the factors which determine international tourism receipts in Tanzania and to investigate the behaviour of international tourism receipts over time. To answer the research questions, three hypotheses were tested using Ordinary least squares from which long run relationship among the variables were established. The research relied solely on secondary data, i.e. covering the period from 2002 to 2007 (7 years). The results suggest that number of international tourists coming to Tanzania, average number of days per tourist; exchange rate and safety have important roles in influencing international tourism receipts in Tanzania. The analysis indicates that increases in the above variables have positive impact on international tourism receipts. Furthermore, average number of tourists in hotels and average expenditure per tourist are found to have positive influence on international tourism receipts but not significant. Thus, policies that foster tourism receipts/revenues in Tanzania focusing on the above influential variables are highly recommended. Future studies should focus on developing a model or models in line with international standards and best practices. This will clear the public confusion over the accuracy of the reported results from different sources such as Bank of Tanzania (BoT), Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Other aspects which call for further study include tourism’s inherent problems and opportunities substantial leakages of tourism earnings /package for inclusive tours and development of sustainable tourism (adjectival tourism).