Damian Gowela
Members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) have visited the Ngoro Ngoro Conservation Area (NCA), as part of their campaign to promote tourist attractions in the bloc.
The EALA lawmaker from Rwanda, who also chairs the EALA 's
Agriculture, Tourism, and Natural Resources (ATNR) committee, Ms Francoise
Uwumukiza said that the assembly decided to support Tanzania government's
efforts in promoting tourism.
She said they decided to start with the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area (NCA), the world's top tourism destination.
"The government of Tanzania and the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) have done a great job to preserve, take care
of the environment, protect the wildlife, cultural heritages, and geological
tourism, which has led to the NCA being recognised by UNESCO as a World
Heritage Sites," Ms Uwumukiza said.
Chairman of the Tourism and Wildlife Management
Sub-Committee, Dr Shogo Mlozi, who is also an EALA MP from Tanzania, said that
statistics show that the EAC region attracted 6.95 million tourists in 2019.
"The region requires an intensive marketing to bring in
more tourists and this is why EALA MPs have embarked on a campaign to promote
the regional attractions to lure more tourists from Europe, America, Asia, and
Africa," Dr Mlozi said.
She added: "While we are engaged in Parliamentary
activities, we will continue to use the Members of Parliament who serve as the
people's representatives to visit the tourism destinations in each of the
member states."
For her part, Amb Fatma Ndangiza from Uganda congratulated
the government of Tanzania for giving priority to wildlife conservation
activities, the environment, and cultural heritage, continuing to attract
visitors from various countries to visit Tanzania.
Moreover, the representative from the NCAA, Senior Assistant
Commissioner Engineer Joshua Mwankunda said that the visit of EALA MPs was of
significant meaning in terms of marketing the tourist attraction.
"This is a continuation of the NCAA efforts to continue
receiving groups of guests from various nations," Mwankunda said.
The NCA provides an opportunity to visitors to see many
attractions in NCA, including the volcanic Ngorongoro Crater, the Big Five,
geological attractions, the Olduvai Gorge Museum, the Ancient Laetoli Human
Footprints that are 3.6 million years old, the shifting sands, and many
more" he said.
The delegation of the EALA consists of MPs from seven EAC
member states - Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC), South Sudan and Rwanda.