View of the sunset at Zanzibar Island, Tanzania (photo by Mahmoud Elmazaty / The Peninsula)
DAR ES SALAAML: Tanzania recorded a 10.7-percent increase in tourist arrivals in 2025, with total visitors reaching 5.94 million compared to 5.36 million in 2024, a government minister told parliament on Friday.
Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Ashatu Kijaji revealed the achievements while presenting her ministry's budget estimates for the 2026/2027 financial year in parliament in Dodoma.
Kijaji said international tourist arrivals rose by 7.1 percent from 2.14 million in 2024 to 2.29 million in 2025, while domestic tourists grew by 13.1 percent from 3.22 million to 3.64 million during the same period.
She said the latest figures released by the United Nations Tourism ranked Tanzania 11th globally in 2025 for growth in international tourist arrivals compared with 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, recording a 51-percent increase.
Kijaji said Tanzania also ranked sixth in Africa and the Middle East in terms of growth in international tourist arrivals compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
"These achievements show that investments made by the government are continuing to yield positive results," Kijaji said.
She added that Tanzania ranked third globally in 2025 among the best-performing tourism markets in terms of visitor spending compared with 2024.
Meanwhile, tourism earnings increased by 12.82 percent, rising from 3.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 to 4.4 billion dollars in 2025, according to Kijaji.
She said the tourism sector has become Tanzania's second-largest foreign exchange earner after mining, driven by increased tourism promotion, improved infrastructure and services, and the use of electronic systems in revenue collection.
