Former Tanzania Tourist Board Chief Executive Officer laid to rest

TANZANIA (eTN) - Tanzania’s most renowned tourism marketing executive, Peter Mwenguo, who passed away from heart failure last Monday was laid to eternal rest in the capital of Dar es Salaam on Thursday after a well-attended requiem mass held at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the city.

Recognized as the most popular tourism marketing and promotion guru in Tanzania and Africa, Mr. Mwenguo managed to place Tanzania in the present world tourism map during his tenure in office as the Managing Director of the Tanzania Tourist Board, which was established under the Act of Parliament of 1993, which formed the Tourist Board to replace the once Tanzania Tourist Corporation.

Trained in both Tanzania and Japan, Mr. Mwenguo served the highest tourism marketing and promotion Board since its inception in 1993. Together with his high-profile winning team, they managed to raise the number of tourists visiting Tanzania from 230,166 the same year to over 867,994 tourists today. His Board also raised the tourism revenue from US$ 146.84 million in 1993 to US$ 1.3 billion to date.

Profiled as the most media friendly Tanzania has had ever in the entire history of its tourism, Mr. Mwenguo cooperated with all sections of media professionals and attracted international media outlets including eTurboNews, CNN, Travel Africa Magazine, the Financial Times (United Kingdom), New York Times, and other prominent magazines and television stations from key tourist sources of Europe, America, and Asia.

With his winning team and the government of Tanzania, Mr. Mwenguo attracted global tourist organizations to come and hold conferences in Tanzania for the first time, among them the Africa Travel Association (ATA) and the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT).

Born in a poor African country where tourism is facing setbacks including the lack of infrastructure, well-trained hospitality manpower, and reliable air transport, Mr. Mwenguo traveled across the world up to the distant markets of Australia, Japan, and Canada to win tourist hearts. During his tenure in office, Tanzania saw big hotel chains investing in key tourist sites and the capital of Dar es Salaam. These include Sheraton, Movenpick, Kempinski, Serena, Legacy Hotel, Southern Sun, Holiday Inn, SOPA, and other leading tourist franchise hospitalities.

From the onset of tourism development and budgetary constraints like any other African destination, Mr. Mwenguo managed to attract big, global airlines to increase their schedule flights from weekly to daily flights, while new airline companies including the Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Air entered Tanzania’s airspace.

Scores of travel writers were attracted through his personal office to fly to Tanzania to cover this country’s premier attractions, mostly the wildlife parks, Mount Kilimanjaro, historical sites, and the Indian Ocean Island of Zanzibar through sponsorship by the Tanzania Tourist Board and airlines.

It is during his tenure in office when giant airlines took competition in Tanzanian air space. These are South African Airways with daily flights between Johannesburg and Dar es Salaam, Kenya Airways (three daily flights from Nairobi), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (daily flights from Amsterdam), Emirates and Qatar Airways (daily flights from the Middle East), and Ethiopian Airlines daily to Dar es Salaam, and the northern Tanzania’s tourist circuit.

Before taking over his last, top post on the Board, Mr. Mwenguo served as the Director of Marketing in the same office during the first years of the Board’s operations and later took over the post as Chief Executive Officer from his predecessor Mr. Credo Sinyangwe.

The late Mwenguo joined the Tanzania Tourist Board in October 22, 1993 as a Director of Marketing, the position he held for 6 years before he was promoted and became the Board’s top boss in 1999. He served at that capacity until October 22, 2008 when he retired in accordance to the law. He was, however, re-employed on a special contract at the same capacity until December 20, 2009, to take over tourism consultancy services and was appointed the Chairman of Tanzania’s premier annual tourism exhibition, the Karibu Travel and Tourism Fair (KTTF) held in Tanzania’s northern tourist city of Arusha.

He passed away just after returning from United States where he attended a graduation ceremony of his child. Tourist stakeholders, the media, and other hospitality fraternity will forever be missing his friendly cheers and charming face, which all added more value in attracting tourists to visit this country.

ETurboNews will continue to recognize Mr. Mwenguo as the leading and transparent top government officer who championed the role of this global travel, online media, hence encouraged its (eTurboNews) present readership in this country and availed himself to give information with quickness when requested by correspondents to do so.