The effects of Covid-19 pandemic on the collection of tourism fees in Ngorongoro district council in Tanzania

Abstract

The governments across the world have been using tourism fees to provide public goods and to ensure maintenance of law and order, defense against external aggression, regulation of tourism business. However, despite the contribution of tourism fees the challenge is to advance the frontiers of professionalism, accountability and awareness of the general public on the imperatives and benefits of taxation in our personal and business lives including promoting economic activity; facilitating savings and investment; and generating strategic competitive advantage. Therefore, the study intended to assess the effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the collection of tourism fee in Ngorongoro District council in Tanzania. The study adopted the descriptive research design to describe the relationship among the variables. The study used both qualitative and quantitative data which were collected from the sample size of 43 employees drawn from the target population of 48 employees of Tanzania Revenue Authorities in Ngorongoro District Council. The study employed the non-probability sampling design to get sampling units and to select respondents. Nevertheless, the study found that 20 respondents equal to 46.5% agreed that tourism fees are collected properly, while 5 respondents equal to 11.6% were strongly agreed. Also, 15 respondents equal to 34.9% of respondents were undecided, and 3respondents equal to 6.9% of respondents disagreed that tourism fees are collected properly. The study concluded that the effects of covid-19 in the collection of tourism fees the study found that covid-19 had positive and strong coefficient value with tourism fees (.241**) indicating that absence of covid-19 will increase collection of tourism fees. Therefore, this indicates that the presence of covid-19 pandemic has decreased collection of tourism fees. Therefore, the study recommends that the Ngorongoro District Council should take serious measure to cope with several challenges facing collection of revenues. Also, the policy marker should formulate new policies that mitigate the challenges facing Local Government Authorities during Covid-19. Further, different stakeholders should participate effectively in sensitizing the benefits it offers as this will also help to overcome the misinterpretation and misuse of the fee collected from stakeholders. Lastly, the Ngorongoro District Council should devise a reliable way to gather data relating to the stakeholders so that their needs and expectations can better be reflected in their revenue collection strategies.