Responsible tourism in Tanzania
Tanzania is one of the world’s poorest countries, but one of the most expensive to travel in, meaning that tourism here can have an enormous impact. Understanding the issues we have highlighted below – as well as getting a foothold on Tanzania’s culture – will help you ensure that your own impact does more to help than to harm.
Our Tanzania Holidays
Tanzania Selous safari holiday & Zanzibar
Off-the-beaten track safari experiences & paradise beaches
Tanzania safari and Zanzibar beach holiday
Your tailor-made Tanzania safari & Zanzibar beach holiday
Exciting family holiday in Tanzania
A family holiday for all ages including the best of Tanzania
Selous safari and beach holiday in Tanzania
A safari in Selous followed by time spent on a small island
Serengeti wildlife safari, Tanzania migration
Explore off road in the world famous Ndutu area
Luxury Tanzania safari and Zanzibar beach holiday
Selous safari then relax on beautiful Zanzibar
Selous safari & Mafia Islands diving holiday
Africa's largest game park
Kilimanjaro Machame Route trekking holiday
Physical challenges, camping adventures & humbling sunrises
Kenya and Tanzania classic tailor made holiday
Explore Kenya and Tanzania's most treasured national parks.
Kenya and Tanzania safari adventure
Witness the best in wildlife and scenery
Tanzania small group safari
Experience the beauty of Africa from Nairobi to Zanzibar
Kenya & Tanzania safari holidays
Some of the best wildlife spots in Tanzania and Kenya
Rwanda and Tanzania tailor made holiday
No need to look further for a safari of lifetime memories.
The Masai Heartlands safari
An amazing and great value 2 week truck safari
Tailor made safari, gorillas, Masai Mara & Zanzibar
Gorilla trekking in Rwanda, safari in Kenya, plus Zanzibar
Kenya and Tanzania family safari, small group
Take a walk on the wild side in Kenya and Tanzania
East Africa safari & Zanzibar holiday
Kenya &Tanzania safari with Zanzibar ultimate experience!
Community volunteering in Tanzania
Have fun helping people help themselves
Tanzania family Safari
Family-friendly luxury safari into Tanzania's wilderness
Tanzania Luxury safari holiday
A luxury safari discovering the wilderness of Tanzania
Tanzania family safari and Zanzibar holiday
Famous Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti combined with beach
Kilimanjaro climb Lemosho route
Awesome 10-Day Kilimanjaro Climb via the Lemosho Route
Tanzania volunteering and safari
Make a difference and experience the Serengeti plains
Tanzania Safari and beach holiday
Selous Game Reserve, Ruaha National Park & Mafia Island
Climbing Kilimanjaro, Machame Route 7 days
Climb Kilimanjaro and enjoy the scenery & wildlife of Tanzania
Tanzania safaris, northern circuit
Serengeti, Ngorogoro and Tarangire at a leisurely pace
Tanzania holiday, safari, culture and wildlife 7 days
Genuine cultural experiences and iconic wildlife parks
Biking holiday in Kenya & Tanzania
16 day biking and wildlife adventure in Kenya and Tanzania.
East Africa and Zanzibar holiday
The perfect contrast of Safari and Beach
Kilimanjaro Climb and Tanzania Safari
13 day Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari
People & culture
Kilimanjaro porters – easing the load
As they zip up and down the mountain that, for most travellers, presents the challenge of a lifetime, it’s easy to view porters as having some kind of superhuman skill, undefeated by altitude, heavy luggage or the cold. But to do so is not just naïve, but dangerous. The lack of respect towards porters – who may be climbing Kilimanjaro in flip flops, carrying over 20kg of luggage, eating insufficient food and being paid a pittance – means that tourists who have paid thousands of pounds to enjoy this holiday may be climbing alongside people who are living on the edge of poverty. Ignoring porters’ rights puts the porters at risk of injury, disease and even death – in the past they have succumbed to malaria and hypothermia – a high price to pay for someone else’s dream holiday.The good news is that there are guidelines in place for companies offering Kilimanjaro treks. The bad new is that these guidelines are not always enforced by a higher authority, leaving tour companies to decide themselves if they want to stick by these principles. Although recommended wages are just £3 per day, porters can be paid as little as half this amount, with no sick pay if they get ill or injured on the mountain, leaving them and their families with no income. Read more from the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP) about the poor treatment of porters.
What you can do:
Choosing a responsible Kilimanjaro tour operator is the most important thing you can do to improve the lives of porters. You can keep the weight of your bag down, ensure your porter is properly dressed and give your tips directly to your porter – but this will only make a short-term difference if the porter is not being employed by an ethical company.
Our suppliers believe in porters’ rights; some are members of KPAP while others have set up their own initiatives, providing porters with proper footwear and offering classes during the rainy season, when many are out of work. But there are other ways you can ensure your porters are being fairly treated, including sending sick or injured porters down the mountain for treatment, checking the porters have adequate shelter and decent sleeping bags, and, of course, reporting any maltreatment to KPAP, at info@kiliporters.org.
We used to do trips with UK guides, but we’ve trained all our local guides now to run those trips, so no UK guides go out on Kili any more. Some companies still use overseas guides – but to me, no one knows Kili like a local. We have Samuel, who’s climbed it 542 times – you can’t buy that experience. It doesn’t matter if you have an IML mountain guide flying in from Seattle and you’re paying five grand for a week. That person will not know any more than the local who’s done it over 100 times.”
Learn more about how you can support Kilimanjaro’s porters here.
The vanishing Hadzabe
Think of East African tribes, and the Maasai probably spring to mind. But other tribes are – for better or for worse – becoming more involved in tourism, and one of the most controversial is the Hadzabe, also known as the Hadza. 1,000-2,000 Hadzabe still inhabit the plains of northern Tanzania, and less than half of these have been able to maintain the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle that they have practised for millenia. Their hunting knowledge, traditional dress and unusual click language – which isolates them from any other tribe – make them appealing to tourists, yet at a time when they have lost up to 90 percent of their traditional hunting and foraging grounds*, this also makes them open to easy exploitation.Having resisted attempts to “settle” them or convert them to Christianity them for centuries, the Hadzabe are now losing their land and livelihoods thanks to seemingly more innocuous sources. Datooga herders are moving in, their cattle destroying the vegetation and water holes needed by the Hadzabe. As an egalitarian, nomadic society – the Hadzabe have no “proof” that the land they have inhabited for millennia is actually theirs, and cannot claim it back. A 2001 BBC documentary created foreign interest in this “exotic” tribe – and the subsequent influx of tourists, money and alcohol proved disastrous. Finally, the annexing of land for private hunting reserves has meant that, paradoxically, the Hadzabe are now being imprisoned for being poachers if they return to hunt on their old land.
However, tourism could now present an opportunity for the Hadzabe to once again control their livelihoods and generate sustainable income. In a historical move, the Tanzanian government granted the Hadzabe land titles in 2011 and the ability to sustain activities such as tourism may strengthen their case for remaining on their land. This is an enormous achievement; as landowners, these formerly powerless people have been given an opportunity to take control of their future. They can choose whether to give tourists and tour operators access to this land – or not – and how much to charge for this. They can rent the land to a lodge or camp, and control the types of interaction that they have with tourists. The balance is finally, gradually, shifting towards the Hadzabe.
* Source: Radical Anthropology Report and Survival International
What you can do:
Currently, many tours to visit the Hadzabe are carried out in an unethical way. Those involved are likely to have been forced to abandon their traditional lifestyles, and will be “performing” purely for tourists; receiving little or none of the fee that has been paid. It has also been suggested that the hunts regularly staged for the benefit of tourists are causing a rapid depletion of wildlife, in areas where animals are already suffering as a result of climate change, overdevelopment and scarce water resources.
So if you do still decide to visit, there are a few things you can do to ensure you are helping, not harming. Longer tours and overnight stays may become possible in the near future, with money being paid directly to the community – so keep an eye out for this – but while operators and guides from outside the community continue mediating the experience, the following is advised:
Be respectful when taking photos – always ask permission first.
Currently, you shouldn’t expect to stay overnight – this is a real village, not a tourist camp.
Do not hand out gifts or money. However well-meaning, this can encourage begging or a dependence on tourists. If you do want to contribute, speak to your tour operator first and they may be able to advise you what to bring, as well as arranging the best person to distribute it.
Ensure you travel with a guide who speaks Hadzabe and has grown up locally or knows the community well.
Keep the exchange just that – an exchange. Share information about yourself as well as asking about the Hadzabe.
Wildlife & environment
The end of the elephants?
One in three elephants poached in Africa is taken from Tanzania. Selous Game Reserve has lost over 90 percent of its elephant population in the last 40 years. After a period where conservation efforts appeared to be successful and populations were recovering, poaching is actually on the increase once again, and the future of Tanzania’s elephants is now looking uncertain.It is tough to police a reserve as vast as Selous, but this amount of poaching is due to high levels of corruption in both Tanzania and China – where most of this illegal ivory is destined to arrive. The Chinese President himself is one of the biggest buyers – while the Tanzanian police and military appear to be aiding the acquisition of the ivory.
*Source: National Geographic and WWF.
Putting an end to poaching is like putting an end to drug trafficking – it is an enormous, global issue with factors ranging from corruption to misguided beliefs and poverty all contributing to its perpetuation. But there are small ways in which you can still make a difference.
Visit the game reserves – particularly Selous and Ruaha. In the south, these reserves receive a handful of visitors compared to the Serengeti, and a lack of income means fewer rangers to patrol the enormous landscapes – and less of an incentive to protect the wildlife. Your entry fee will contribute directly to conservation efforts.
Donate to an organisation such as WWF, who are looking at innovative ways to deter poachers. Just £5.50 can send a local child to an elephant reserve, where they will learn about elephant conservation, and £32 will pay an anti-poaching ranger’s salary for a month.
Read more about WWF’s African Elephant Programme here.
Hunting & conservation
Unlike Kenya, trophy hunting is currently permitted in Tanzania, with a ban imposed in 2015 lifted in 2018, and permits available to shoot everything from oryx to buffalo, elephants to lions in five regions across Tanzania. It’s not hard to see why Tanzania allows this; a couple of lion hunters can bring in more revenue than a couple of hundred tourists, and these profits can be reinvested back into conservation. Although this is far from ideal, well-managed hunting can safeguard wildlife-rich areas outside of national parks, deterring poachers and human-wildlife conflict.Lions are the most prized – and costly – of all prey, although allowing them to be hunted has been credited with their high numbers in Tanzania, as their protection is encouraged. Other issues include the lack of restrictions on the age of the lions being hunted. If the dominant male of a pride is killed, the next male will kill his cubs, meaning that while one lion is counted as being hunted, many more will die.
Additionally, with illegal elephant poaching out of control, it has been argued that elephants should not be hunted for sport. Campaigners also argue that there is no evidence of how quotas have been calculated, and there are lax controls over the hunts themselves.
What you can do:
While it can be argued that trophy hunting protects some of Tanzania’s wildlife, we would ideally like to see most ethical alternatives in the future. Some wildlife-rich African countries do not permit hunting. It has been banned in Kenya, for example, since 1977. Spending your money wisely in national parks, game reserves and with local communities emphasises the importance of wildlife tourism over trophy hunting.
Many tour operators also have projects which promote education and raising awareness in schools of the importance of conservation. As the future protectors of Tanzania’s wildlife, their engagement with their environment is essential if there is a chance of hunting being stopped in the future.