Paper short abstract:

Tourism is focused in Ngorongoro on high-end, short-stay tourism. The inhabitants do not profit from this, at best they are object of curiosity. To bring local income to grow, diversification of tourism is needed. The paper analyses how this can be realized.

Paper long abstract:

The 1,000,000 visitors to the Ngorongoro Crater in 2016 paid $70 per person per day entry fee. These $70 million go to the central government. The total revenues from tourism for the Ngorongoro district and its population are all together $2.5 million a year. At most 1250 district people (out of ~200,000) work in the 36 luxury hotels and lodges. The rest is allowed to retain its pastoral life and to dance and sing and show their traditional lifestyle … and to impoverish more and more. Currently of 1,000,000 tourists spend only between 50 and 60,000 nights in the district. And they pay per night between $250 and $1000. All tourism is oriented towards the ultimate wildlife experience in the parks, bringing high revenues for tour operators, hotel owners and government but nothing for the district population. However, real economic growth for the Maasai and Batemi families is perfectly possible outside the parks. This paper shows where, how and who can develop mid-range long-stay accommodation for leisure, health, adventure and sportive tourism and for religious and culture tourism. This will liberate the traditional inhabitants from being victims, losing land and livelihood to tourism. They will turn into subjects, actors who profit from tourism building their own future. Revenues go up to $72 million and owners of tourist accommodation employ over 10,000 district people by 2026. This will represent 22% of a District Gross Product needed to achieve middle income status. A multiplier effect will easily double this.

Paper Download (838 KB)