The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in Tanzania is planning to construct a new train station and visitor information centre in the country in partnership with the Tanzania Wildlife Management (TAWA).
It is said that both projects are aimed at boosting the country’s revenue through tourism and will be built at Selous Forest Reserve at Matambwe in the Northern Zone.
A team led by Deputy Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr Aloyce Nziku, recently toured the proposed area.
In addition, TAWA Communication Officer, Twaha Twalibu, was quoted by the ‘Daily News’ saying that the Ministry of Works (TAZARA), TAWA and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism met in March last year and discussed the proposed expansion of Matambwe Halt station.
He added that the expansion would go hand-in-hand with construction of an information centre, waiting lounge and curio shops.
“The goal of expanding the Halt Station is to exploit the opportunities that the TAZARA line offers, in a bid to serve large numbers of tourists, and to promote local tourism by applying cheaper travel costs compared to other transportation options,” Twalibu said.
The goal, furthermore, was to exploit opportunities linked to the tourist train “Rovos” from South Africa, to promote tourism at international level.
He added that additional advantages would be to add value of investments in Selous Forest Reserve, including opening up the new package of tourism as the reserve forest would be the first of its own to be reached by that means.