The Cultural Tourism Industry in Tanzania is facing a serious gende imbalance. It also has a tremendous potential in terms of community development if women & youth get more and better involved. The majority of CTEs are male-run, with little to no involvement from females at managerial level. General female involvement is in cooking for guests or cleaning/housing them at home stays. There are a few female-run CTEs such as the Mbora Women’s Group (all women except one man who does marketing and guide translation) and Mama Shoo’s (mix of women and men working under a lady). Women’s influence on the way CTEs are run seems quite low, and so are the benefits they get from their work. Apart from some 5 women-run CTEs, most of them are run by men. There are few ladies tour guides but stereotypes are tough to change. Many girls and women lack confidence or permission from their husbands or family to do their job. CTE leaders are not always aware of the difficulties women are facing, nor of the benefits of having more women tour guides. On marketing aspects, some CTEs are making good use of social media, but others send older male leaders to trainings although those are not familiar with those technologies – which impair the CTE’s ability to attract clients and develop markets.
Participants
Participants are from 24 Cultural Tourism Enterprises (CTEs)’s in the Northern Region and there is one male and one female from each (except for Mbora which is two women, and Mto Wa Mbu which is two women and one man)
Support institutions:
Tanzania Tourism Board (TTB): supports The Cultural Tourism Program across Tanzania, and works with them on promotion, marketing, product development, and to ensure that the industry is up to standard and moving in the right direction. As of recent, they are also focusing on increasing the number of women & youth in the industry in hopes of a more gender balanced, sustainable industry.
Uniterra: canadian volunteer program that supports women & youth economic empowerment. In Tanzania, we support the tourism and fruit and vegetables sectors. We work with an inclusive market system approach, addressing the barriers faced by women & youth to access more or better opportunities in the sector. Through canadian volunteer mandates, we support Tanzania Tourism Board (TTB) in its efforts to build the capacities of CTEs in marketing, product development and gender and youth inclusion.
Aim of the workshop was to capacitate men and women to:
• Be inspired by the possibilities of moving forward to achieve a vision;
• Have analysed for themselves the negative consequences of gender inequality for their ability to achieve this vision;
• Realise that they can also help other people to change through sharing what they have learnt;
• Be convinced of the benefits of keeping their flipcharts, tracking their progress and that of those they hope to help or change;
• Come away with a clear change plan in flipcharts, tracking their progress steps from day 1;
• Be singing enjoying their new found freedom
Requirements: Flipcharts, A4 notebooks, marker pens, pens in 4 colours: black, blue, green (or pencil)