All Africa reports that Zanzibar’s tourist arrivals had more than doubled in October,  to over 12 000 visitors. This has heightened hopes of achieving at least half of the annual target of half a million holiday makers.

Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, Zanzibar had expected to surpass last year’s record of almost 540 000 tourist arrivals. State University of Zanzibar Lecturer, Dr Estella Ngoma Hassan said the outbreak of Corona virus had crippled the tourism industry five times (more than) the global financial crisis had.

Tourism Department Assistant Head Statistician for Zanzibar, Raya Mohammed Mahfoudh said just over 12 000 tourists had visited Zanzibar in October 2020. October 2019 had seen 53 000 visitors to the island. Nevertheless, this was a rise from 5 400 visitors in September 2020. The latest tourist arrivals have brought the total number of visitors in the past 10 months, to 183 000.

All Africa reports that Europe, meanwhile, has emerged as the leading market for Zanzibar tourism. Europe accounts for 73.5 per cent of all visitors to the island, with France the leading country at 17 per cent of all visitors, with Russia following at came  16 per cent.

Zanzibar Commission for Tourism’s Chief Marketing Officer, Amour Mtumwa Ali described the statistics as an indication of the bright future for the tourism sector in Zanzibar, saying “If this trend persists, we will definitely attain at least half of our initial 500 000 visitor target.”

Umm Muhammed Umar