Food Tourism & its policy barriers

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

A local cuisine can attract large number of tourists. Mr. Sunday Ndunguru, a Tanzanian entrepreneur, squabbles that in the region, there are opportunities in the lucrative food tourism business that is yet to get prominence.

Comparatively, food tourism remains quite an unexplored business potential, with Mr. Ndunguru, a pioneering investor in the said sector, fighting hard to formalize his digital business and be licensed observed. His business, marketed as Jiranileo, is a platform where he arranges private and group meals eaten with local hosts from across Africa.

“We help people to get to know their neighbours and experience the warm hospitality across the continent.”

“We invite you to our table,” he says, explaining how his business works, but he insists that this is not a restaurant. “It’s just a website that connects people of different cultures to learn together.”

In Feb, 2020, Mr. Ndunguru says that he had registered the food tourism business platform, operating as Kambirana Group (T) Ltd. Over there, he works as chief operations officer and regional manager for East Africa. He says since that time, he has been searching for a licence to work hassle-free in the country where his kind of business hasn’t officially existed.

E-commerce is yet to take deep roots in Tanzania because of lack of a digital policy, and other gaps, leaving online shoppers and traders in confused.

“I’m not aware [of the business], let them bring the issue to my attention,” says Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism permanent secretary Allan Kijazi asking anyone with such business initiatives to present them to the authorities “for consideration.”

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