He said Tanzania’s official stand regarding the willingness of other
countries to enter bilateral or trilateral arrangements needed consensus
before their implementation. PHOTO|FILE
By Bernard Lugongo,The Citizen
Posted Monday, October 28 2013 at 10:14
Posted Monday, October 28 2013 at 10:14
In Summary
The visa will help to ease movement of tourists
across national borders and make it easier for industry players to
offer multi-destination packages. However, Tanzania has declined to join
the arrangement for now
Dar es Salaam. The government
will not join the fast tracked East African single tourist visa until
the relevant fee collection infrastructure that links member states is
in place.
The stand comes even as three other EA members -- Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda -- are about to launch the visa.
The visa will help to ease movement of tourists
across national borders and make it easier for industry players to offer
multi-destination packages.
The spokesman of the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Chikandi Rumisha, told The Citizen
yesterday that the Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
infrastructure was important to enable the exchange of fees, data and
other information on tourists.
Mr Rumisha said the government has also considered
other issues including security as verification of visitors will only
be done at any entry point among the member states.
“The proposed network of sharing data on tourists
and fee collection, as well as security issues leaves a lot to be
desired,” Mr Rumisha said.
“For instance, when a tourist pays entry fee in
Kenya, and he or she gets security problems here, we (Tanzania) will
incur costs?” he said.
The single tourist visa has been the subject of
discussion for a number of years, with security issues, how to split
revenues and visitor screening being among the major issues.
But Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya have seen that the
advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, according to Ms Waturi Matu, a
coordinator (Kenya) of the East African Tourism Platform.
Moves to facilitate tourists across EAC borders
was given fresh impetus in June under what has come to be termed as ‘the
coalition of the willing, when the presidents of Kenya, Uganda and
Rwanda met and agreed to strengthen integration and cooperation.
“Rwanda will be in charge of designing the visa,
and the plan is to have it launched in January next year with Tanzania
and Burundi free to join at any time,” Ms Matu said.
What the single visa means to visitors is that they will only pay $100 instead of three visas for $150.
“Tourism is a key source of income for the East African Community and we support the East African Tourism Platform precisely,” she said.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
“Tourism is a key source of income for the East African Community and we support the East African Tourism Platform precisely,” she said.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
