Ticket to Development
I jetted out of Pearson International in Toronto one week ago today. The past seven days have been an emotional rollercoaster. At times I've been excited to finally be in Tanzania. I've also found myself feeling apprehensive on more than one occasion. It's an entirely new social scene here and my connections are embryonic at best. I also have a lot of work to do. Above all, I've felt sad to leave behind my best friend Katharine and our little pet, "the man" (see the photo). I hadn't realized just how attached I'd grown to them! As I arrived at the start of the Revolutionary Day long weekend I had a lot of time to think about life with them over the past years.
I busied myself last weekend with several day trips to important historical points of interest. On Friday, to make the memories of my 48 hour "in transit" experience fade, I hired a car to take me to Bagamoyo up the coast. This city used to be the heart of the Omani empire's slaving and ivory trading operations. It also served as the first capital of German East Africa. I toured one of East Africa's first mosques and walked the famous coastline where many of East Africa's dhows (boats) are built. I also started remembering Swahili phrases and hacked away at them while ordering lunch and hanging out in the fruit market.
Somewhere between seeing another lorry load of pineapples making its way towards the city and watching my driver haggle over a bag of mangoes he asked me if I wanted to see his new plot of land. He told me that he had saved up 2 million TZS (+/- $1900 Canadian) to purchase a small hillside piece of property, and will spend a further 5 million TZS to build his retirement home on the site. The Tanzanian government estimates that the monthly average income for urban households is 104 thousand TZS per month. Assuming my driver earns the average, he will have to devote 48 months of earned income to build his dream home, potentially more if he takes out any loans to speed the process. To me this level of investment (four years of household income) seems quite similar to what many Canadian families would put into the construction of their cottage or retirement home.
But the numbers are interesting. They occupied me on Saturday when I had some time to play with them. For example, in 2005, nearly 583 thousand tourists visited Tanzania. If each of these visitors spent the very conservative equivalent of 1.6 million TZS on their flight, the international airlines made nearly as much as Tanzania earned in foreign exchange receipts from its tourists that year: $746 million USD or roughly 956 billion TZS. Assuming my driver's costs were accurate, 956 billion TZS would build 88 300 houses on plots of similar size.
Having time to think, a rather radical idea occurred to me. What if tourists were encouraged to donate the equivalent of their flight costs directly to the government or development agencies operating in the country? The government would be able to make tourism less of an 'enclave' industry and redistribute the earnings from the sector across the economy in a way that would meet their development objectives. Tanzanians that are less well off than my driver and that do not currently benefit directly from the tourist industry would stand to make substantial gains.
The challenge, of course, would be to get prospective tourists to purchase the "ticket to development". Beyond moral suasion there are several possible ways that this approach could be made viable. An incentive package funded from the earnings of the scheme could be developed that would give ticket holders access to great discounts on their accommodation that would be unavailable to "regular" tourists. Global publicity could also make purchasing the ticket into a status symbol in the rich countries. To serve those that purchase the ticket but choose to forgo their trip, the government could create an agency that would produce "virtual" memories with the latest technology that recount the forgone vacation. In David Vogel's terms, there is a new "market for virtue". Perhaps Tanzania can take advantage of this new climate, and concern for Africa in general, with the establishment of a market for development tickets or something similar.
Anyway, these are quite possibly the bleary ramblings of a culture shocked Canadian that misses his good friends...so the above policy advice should be taken with a truckload of salt!
Saturday I traveled to Pugu Hill, home to the secondary school where Mwalimu Julius Nyerere - the father of the nation - taught before he became active in politics. It was a great adventure, especially when I headed further up the road to Kisarawe. The local cop pulled the car over and made my driver demonstrate that all parts were in working order, including the wipers, seatbelts, headlights, blinkers and mirrors. After checking the registration and insurance particulars, he demanded to know why the car lacked a fire extinguisher. Apparently the cop was looking for "chai kidogo" (a little tea). Thinking fast, my driver told him that I wasn't set to pay until I returned to my hotel. The officer subsequently let us go.
Sunday I hit Kunduchi beach North of the city. Despite my best efforts to reapply sunscreen the tropical sun did what it typically does upon first exposure: I now have a sunburned left ankle and some serious streaking on my back. It was great to be back in salt water not far from where I last tasted it to the North and West on Zanzibar in 2004. I also rediscovered dalla dallas that day (shared toyota minivans). Why I went for cabs on days one and two I'm not sure. Riding with twenty people in a minivan made me remember my last trip, and I started to feel more at ease in my new surroundings.
Yesterday (Monday) was a day of bureaucratic non-events. I secured my research clearance and immigration papers, and picked up my plane ticket to Nairobi for the World Social Forum. I head for Nairobi on Saturday.
Today I move into my new place on Ocean Road, up from State House. I am indebted to Namwaka Omari and Reuben Mwaikinda for finding me this space and can't wait to meet my new housemate, Ronald Shelukindo.
That's it for the first post. My USB cable is en route, so there will be pictures starting next week. Keep in touch via email!
adam
I busied myself last weekend with several day trips to important historical points of interest. On Friday, to make the memories of my 48 hour "in transit" experience fade, I hired a car to take me to Bagamoyo up the coast. This city used to be the heart of the Omani empire's slaving and ivory trading operations. It also served as the first capital of German East Africa. I toured one of East Africa's first mosques and walked the famous coastline where many of East Africa's dhows (boats) are built. I also started remembering Swahili phrases and hacked away at them while ordering lunch and hanging out in the fruit market.
Somewhere between seeing another lorry load of pineapples making its way towards the city and watching my driver haggle over a bag of mangoes he asked me if I wanted to see his new plot of land. He told me that he had saved up 2 million TZS (+/- $1900 Canadian) to purchase a small hillside piece of property, and will spend a further 5 million TZS to build his retirement home on the site. The Tanzanian government estimates that the monthly average income for urban households is 104 thousand TZS per month. Assuming my driver earns the average, he will have to devote 48 months of earned income to build his dream home, potentially more if he takes out any loans to speed the process. To me this level of investment (four years of household income) seems quite similar to what many Canadian families would put into the construction of their cottage or retirement home.
But the numbers are interesting. They occupied me on Saturday when I had some time to play with them. For example, in 2005, nearly 583 thousand tourists visited Tanzania. If each of these visitors spent the very conservative equivalent of 1.6 million TZS on their flight, the international airlines made nearly as much as Tanzania earned in foreign exchange receipts from its tourists that year: $746 million USD or roughly 956 billion TZS. Assuming my driver's costs were accurate, 956 billion TZS would build 88 300 houses on plots of similar size.
Having time to think, a rather radical idea occurred to me. What if tourists were encouraged to donate the equivalent of their flight costs directly to the government or development agencies operating in the country? The government would be able to make tourism less of an 'enclave' industry and redistribute the earnings from the sector across the economy in a way that would meet their development objectives. Tanzanians that are less well off than my driver and that do not currently benefit directly from the tourist industry would stand to make substantial gains.
The challenge, of course, would be to get prospective tourists to purchase the "ticket to development". Beyond moral suasion there are several possible ways that this approach could be made viable. An incentive package funded from the earnings of the scheme could be developed that would give ticket holders access to great discounts on their accommodation that would be unavailable to "regular" tourists. Global publicity could also make purchasing the ticket into a status symbol in the rich countries. To serve those that purchase the ticket but choose to forgo their trip, the government could create an agency that would produce "virtual" memories with the latest technology that recount the forgone vacation. In David Vogel's terms, there is a new "market for virtue". Perhaps Tanzania can take advantage of this new climate, and concern for Africa in general, with the establishment of a market for development tickets or something similar.
Anyway, these are quite possibly the bleary ramblings of a culture shocked Canadian that misses his good friends...so the above policy advice should be taken with a truckload of salt!
Saturday I traveled to Pugu Hill, home to the secondary school where Mwalimu Julius Nyerere - the father of the nation - taught before he became active in politics. It was a great adventure, especially when I headed further up the road to Kisarawe. The local cop pulled the car over and made my driver demonstrate that all parts were in working order, including the wipers, seatbelts, headlights, blinkers and mirrors. After checking the registration and insurance particulars, he demanded to know why the car lacked a fire extinguisher. Apparently the cop was looking for "chai kidogo" (a little tea). Thinking fast, my driver told him that I wasn't set to pay until I returned to my hotel. The officer subsequently let us go.
Sunday I hit Kunduchi beach North of the city. Despite my best efforts to reapply sunscreen the tropical sun did what it typically does upon first exposure: I now have a sunburned left ankle and some serious streaking on my back. It was great to be back in salt water not far from where I last tasted it to the North and West on Zanzibar in 2004. I also rediscovered dalla dallas that day (shared toyota minivans). Why I went for cabs on days one and two I'm not sure. Riding with twenty people in a minivan made me remember my last trip, and I started to feel more at ease in my new surroundings.
Yesterday (Monday) was a day of bureaucratic non-events. I secured my research clearance and immigration papers, and picked up my plane ticket to Nairobi for the World Social Forum. I head for Nairobi on Saturday.
Today I move into my new place on Ocean Road, up from State House. I am indebted to Namwaka Omari and Reuben Mwaikinda for finding me this space and can't wait to meet my new housemate, Ronald Shelukindo.
That's it for the first post. My USB cable is en route, so there will be pictures starting next week. Keep in touch via email!
adam
posted by adam at 11:01 PM
3 Comments:
Sounds like an eventful few days. as for the ticket to development, you'd have a hard time getting tourists to donate the price of an intl plane ticket for a tanzanian coupon book. perhaps some sort of alternative tourism market would be interesting.
I agree that the 'coupon' idea might be a little far fetched. However, I still think that this type of product has the potential to become a serious status symbol in the rich world. If, for example, Tanzanian President Kikwete were to appear on Oprah to advocate the ticket and articulate the ways that Tanzania would benefit from it, and Oprah subsequently purchased one and travelled to beautiful Tanzania, a potentially huge demographic with massive amounts of disposable income and a new concern for the world's poorest could 'feel' a need to contribute and consequently generate serious demand for the ticket.
Traveling always has to be reasonable in every way especially to me 2 days tour from new york is a way to approach a lot of numbers of things that are useful with me and according to uses its amazing..
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