Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: Tourism Sustainability Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, focusing on its tourism sustainability. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, followed by an overview of the destination, including geographical information, unique selling points, and visitor experiences. The report identifies key stakeholders, analyzes tourist motivations, and examines the environmental issue of wildlife destruction impacting the park's success. A comparison with the Masai Mara National Reserve is conducted, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. The report concludes with recommendations, such as collaboration between African nations to combat poaching and raising awareness about wildlife conservation. The findings emphasize the economic importance of wildlife tourism for Tanzania and the need for sustainable practices to ensure its long-term viability. The report is well-structured, including appendices and references to support the analysis, addressing the assignment brief's requirements thoroughly.

Running head: TOURISM
Sustainability of the Serengeti National Park
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Executive Summary:
The report below shows that tourism one of the booming industries in several countries. The
industry is even more significant for middle income countries like Tanzania which are more
industrially underdeveloped compared to their developed counterparts. Wildlife tourism is a
segment of the tourism industry in which the African countries including Tanzania dominate.
Tanzania attract thousands of tourists from all over the world who visit to experience its wildlife
at flagship reserve, the Serengeti National Park. However, the national park faces increasing
threats due to bush meat hunting and poaching. These threats would not only harm the park and
its resident wild animals , but also the economy of Tanzania as well. Hence, one can recommend
that the Government of Tanzania should create awareness about the need to conserve wildlife in
order to ensure sustenance of its wildlife and its wildlife tourism.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Findings:..........................................................................................................................................3
1. An overview of the destination:...................................................................................................3
1.1. Geographical information:....................................................................................................3
1.2. Unique selling points or USPs:.............................................................................................4
1.3. Visitor experimental components:........................................................................................4
1.4. Identification of the key stakeholders responsible for promoting and managing the
sustainability of the destination:..................................................................................................4
2. Three main motives of tourist visits:...........................................................................................5
3. Identification of an environmental issue impacting the success of tourist destination:..............6
4. Identification of the main competitor destination and analysis of the strengths as well
weaknesses of the destination for attracting visitors:......................................................................6
Recommendations on how the Serengeti National Park can prosper long term in increasing or at
least maintaining the current visitor numbers:.................................................................................7
Collaboration between African nations to crackdown on poaching:...........................................8
Creation of awareness among the countries:...............................................................................8
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................8
Appendices:.....................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction:
Tourism is a booming industry which is contributing to the economic development of
several nations. The industry ushers several economic benefits like generation of employment
opportunities, earning of foreign currency reserve and even growth of other industries like hotel
industries. Wildlife tourism is one of the booming segments within the tourism sector. The
segment is booming in countries with rich resources of wildlife, forests and grasslands like
Tanzania (Worldbank.org, 2019). Wildlife boosts the tourism of Tanzania
(Tradingeconomics.com, 2020) (Appendix 1). However, wildlife in Tanzania faces several
threats like deforestation, killing of wild animals and poaching them for their body parts
(Johnston, 2017). This threats would result in endangering the sustainability of wildlife tourism
in the country, ultimately slowing down its economic growth. The aim of the paper would be
exploring the offerings and sustainability of the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania which is one
of most important wildlife tourism attractions in the country.
Findings:
1. An overview of the destination:
1.1. Geographical information:
The Serengeti National Park is located in Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania. The rivers
Grometi, Mara, Mbalageti and Orangi drain the park. The area of the Serengeti National Park is
14750 square kilometers and is the flagship tourist attraction of the country. The park has
different types of vegetation right from grasslands, rainforests to savanna. This diverse natural

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vegetation and presence of major rivers have made the wildlife sanctuary the home to diverse
wildlife. The park shelters different types of animals like lions, elephants, cheetahs and
wildebeests. These wild animals attract tourists from all over the world, thus becoming the
drivers of tourism, foreign currency reserve generation and all over economic development of the
country (Tanzaniatourism.go.tz, 2020) (Appendix 2).. The Serengeti National Park shares
borders with Masai Mara National Reserve, often regarded as its closest competitor.
1.2. Unique selling points or USPs:
The unique selling points of the Serengeti National Park are its vast reserve of wildlife,
its different types of natural vegetation and its natural beauty. The tourists can also experience
the authentic African culture by interacting with the African tribes like the Masai tribe living in
the region.
1.3. Visitor experimental components:
The visitors to the Serengeti National Park can experiment with different types of
components to boost their experience. For example, they can go on safaris to watch the wild
animals. They can go on fishing trips to the Victoria Lake. The can also go on cultural trips to
interact with the tribes living in and around the national park (Tanzaniatourism.go.tz, 2020).
1.4. Identification of the key stakeholders responsible for promoting and managing the
sustainability of the destination:
The key stakeholders accountable for promoting and managing the sustainability of the
Serengeti National Park are the Government of Tanzania, the governments of the countries of
origin of the tourists, the tourists themselves and the firms serving the tourists. The Government
of Tanzania is responsible for making the policies and strategies for maintenance of the park.

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The government is also responsible for forming sustainable strategies. The governments of other
nations like the UK are responsible for allowing the tourists from their respective countries under
control visit the Serengeti National Park which in turn largely leads to generation of revenue for
the government of Tanzania. The foreign residents in nations like the UK are responsible for
launching several conservation projects to fight environmental issues like poaching which
threaten the environmental sustainability of the national park (Theguardian.com. 2017). Thus, in
other words, the foreign governments and residents are key stakeholders contributing
significantly to the sustainability of the national park. The tourists who visit the national park are
significant key stakeholders since they generate revenue, a part of which in turn goes into
adoption and implementation process. The next group of stakeholders of the Serengeti National
Park consists of the firms like hotels, restaurants, and saferi service providing firms which serve
the tourists. These firms play very important roles in ensuring sustainability of the national park.
For example, they create awareness among the tourists about the need to conserve the
environmental condition in the park by behaving in appropriate methods like not throwing plastic
containers in it. Similarly, these firms employ local residents. They as a result create
employment opportunities among the local communities in the Serengeti region and bring about
economic development in it. The local communities in order to enjoy these benefits ushered
upon them like employment opportunities by the wildlife tourism in the Serengeti National Park
encourage sustainability in the national park. Thus, in other words, firms in the Serengeti
National Park play significant role in promoting sustainability of tourism in the region.
2. Three main motives of tourist visits:
The tourists visit the Serengeti National Park owing to three main motives. First of all,
most of the tourists visit the national park to experience its wildlife for which it is world famous.

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The second pull factor in the national park which attracts tourists is adventure tourism like
wildlife trekking. The third motive which attracts tourists to the Tanzanian wildlife reserve is
research. Specialists from different fields like science like biology and herpetology visit the park
to conduct researches on its diverse ecosystem and geology.
3. Identification of an environmental issue impacting the success of tourist destination:
An environmental issue which is affecting the Serengeti National Park adversely,
gradually leading to decline of its capacity to attract tourists is destruction of the wildlife in the
national park. The resident wild animals like elephants and wildebeest are facing severe threats
of poaching and bush meat trading threats (Eturbonews.com 2017). The hunters and poachers
illegally kill the wild animals in either to consume them as food or sell their body parts in the
foreign markets to earn high revenue. These threats have led to fall in the population of wild
animals like African elephants and leopards, which attract tourists in large numbers. Thus, in
order words, waning population of these animals in the Serengeti National Park would result in
fall in the numbers of tourists’ visits. This environmental issue of issue of wildlife would
ultimately lead to reduction of the economic benefits like employment generation and earning of
foreign reserves which the Government of Tanzania gains due to wildlife tourism from the
national park. The Government of Tanzania owing to its falling revenue generation would not be
able to take steps to maintain environmental sustainability in the park like deploying personnel to
check poaching and arrest poachers (Ng'wanakilala, 2019).

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4. Identification of the main competitor destination and analysis of the strengths as well
weaknesses of the destination for attracting visitors:
The main competitor wildlife reserve destination to the Serengeti National Park is the
Masai Mara National Reserve, located to the north of the former. The Masai Mara National
Reserve, like the Serengeti is home to several types of wild animals including African elephants
and lions. It, like Serengeti National Park is one of the most visit wildlife tourism destinations in
Africa. Large herds of wild animals like gazelles, wildebeests and zebras cross from Serengeti to
Masai Mara and back annually in search of greener pastures. Thus is migration of wild animals
attract tourists from all over the world to these two reserves. The strength of the Masai Mara lies
in the fact it is larger in area compared to the Serengeti. This means it is able to support larger
wildlife population. Secondly, it is drained by the Mara River which enables it to support more
fertile grasslands compared to the Serengeti. Thus, the Masai Mara National Reserve is
apparently capable of poaching wildlife tourists from the Serengeti National Park. However, in
reality, the wildlife in Masai Mara faces higher levels of environmental threats compared to the
Serengeti. The wild animals in the reserve face threats owing to higher levels of poaching,
encroachments of human constructions in the reserve and deforestation (Theconversation.com,
2019). These factors threaten the sustainability of wildlife and wildlife tourism in the Masai
Mara. The second weakness of Masai Mara lies in the fact the concerned government, the
Government of Kenya has failed to take sufficient steps to curb poaching. The Serengeti under
governance of Tanzania experiences high level of crackdown on poaching (Ng'wanakilala,
2019).

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Recommendations on how the Serengeti National Park can prosper long term in increasing
or at least maintaining the current visitor numbers:
The following are two strategies which could be taken to ensure long term prosperity of
the Serengeti National Park:
Collaboration between African nations to crackdown on poaching:
African nations like Tanzania and Kenya should collaborate to crackdown on poaching
by sharing resources like knowledge, technology and financial resources. This would lead to
greater control of poaching, thereby ensuring higher levels of sustainability of wildlife in the
region and resultant wildlife tourism.
Creation of awareness among the countries:
The government of Tanzania should create awareness among all the people residing both
in Tanzania as well as foreign nations about the importance of wildlife sustainability. The people
should be encouraged not to use goods made from parts of wild animals. This would lead to fall
in demand for parts of wild animals and gradually lead to reduction of poaching of wild animals
like elephants and wildebeests for their body parts.
Conclusion:
One can conclude that wildlife tourism holds great importance for the economic
development of Tanzania. The Serengeti National Park, owing to its vast reserves of wildlife is
able to attract tourists from all round the globe, thereby boosting the wildlife tourism industry of
the country. The national park in other words ushers hosts of economic benefits for Tanzania in
the forms of earning of foreign reserves and generation of employment opportunities. The
wildlife of the national park faces threats owing to poaching and bush meat hunting. The

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government of Tanzania should take steps to reduce these environmental threats in order to
encourage development of wildlife tourism in the Serengeti and generate long term benefits from
it.

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Appendices:
Appendix 1. GDP of Tanzania:

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Appendix 2: Screen shots of tourism packages in the Serengeti National Park:

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References:
Worldbank.org. (2019). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2019/05/09/wildlife-based-tourism-as-engine-
of-growth-in-tanzania
Johnston, I. (2017). Independent.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/wayne-lotter-shot-dead-anti-poaching-
conservationist-queen-ivory-tanzania-pams-dar-es-salaam-a7900281.html
Tanzaniatourism.go.tz. (2020). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.tanzaniatourism.go.tz/en/things-to-do/cultural-tourism
Theguardian.com. (2017). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/13/what-can-i-do-to-help-elephants
Eturbonews.com. (2017). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.eturbonews.com/168646/serengeti-faces-yet-another-silent-deadly-
poaching-threat/
Ng'wanakilala, F. (2019). Reuters.com. Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-wildlife/tanzania-says-elephant-rhino-
populations-rebounding-after-anti-poaching-crackdown-idUSKCN1U51NU
Theconversation.com. (2019). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://theconversation.com/wildebeest-migrations-in-east-africa-face-extinction-what-
must-be-done-114652

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Tradingeconomics.com. (2020). Retrieved 26 March 2020, from
https://tradingeconomics.com/tanzania/gdp
Tanzaniatourism.go.tz. (2020). Retrieved 26 March 2020, from
https://www.tanzaniatourism.go.tz/en/tour-packages