The newly appointed Managing Director of the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) has reiterated his commitment to the country’s target of achieving five million international tourist arrivals by 2025.
The President of the United Republic of Tanzania Samia Suluhu Hassan announced former Hospitality Association of Tanzania Head Damasi Mfugale as the new head of the TTB in early February this year, replacing Felix John who had been the Acting MD since 2021.
Mfugale led TTB to participate in this year’s Meetings Africa in Johannesburg where he shared his alignment with President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s target for driving up Tanzania’s tourism numbers in an interview with VoyagesAfriq.
“You might be aware that the president has announced that we are supposed to reach 5 million tourists by 2025. So, you could see the pressure behind it; so, that is my initial KPI.
“Obviously, after you’ve done that, you are expected to boost the government coffers in terms of taxation, the well-being of the people, and employment. So those are my KPIs,” he emphasized.
In line with this, MD mentioned that his focus goes beyond tourism marketing and promotion to include developing existing and new products for the sector.
Also, of much importance to Mfugale is the MICE sector which he indicated presents an opportunity to diversify Tanzania’s tourism product.
He posited: “MICE is a very emerging tourism product, and we also want to make sure it becomes an alternative tourism product for the country. Because as you know, we are famous for nature-based tourism, and we also want to grow MICE in terms of bringing meetings into Tanzania. Our focus is not only to bring it in, but also develop the infrastructure which goes hand in hand with the MICE to successfully facilitate those kinds of meetings.”
Profile
Mfugale has a Master’s in Arts (MA) in International Hospitality and Tourism Management from International Management Institute (IMI) Switzerland. Mfugale is a consultant for the African Chapter of EBI International Consulting Group in Canada.
With twenty years of professional tourism and hospitality experience in Switzerland, the USA, Tanzania and South Africa, Damasi has progressive advancement and consistent achievement within the private sector and government-funded agencies and institutions. He has extensive work experience as a Chairman, Member of Boards, and Director in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Damasi has an excellent reputation in defining corporate direction, providing leadership by engaging employees, being customer-focused, and promoting individual and institutional objectives attainment. An inclusive and collaborative leader and a manager that strives to build strong commitment, competence, and motivation; at the same time fixing success processes to safeguard productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality to achieve the essential performance results and organizational mission.
Possessing extensive professional local and international networks supported by outstanding qualifications in building and managing business partnerships, Damasi helped organizations to relate better to the industry stakeholders.
This article was first published in the March 2023 edition of the VoyagesAfriq Travel Magazine
