TANZANIA is among a number of countries set to host major fora around the world in the first 100 days of incoming US President Donald Trump. A pact has just been signed to that effect with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UN Tourism), making Tanzania the host of the second forum on gastronomy tourism for Africa. The tourism minister was in the Spanish capital of Madrid for the signing on Friday; it will be a testy engagement.

The reason is the delegates will have more than the bonanza of testing various types of food and hotel operators scanning which recipes appear more appealing to the visitors. It isn’t about tourism per se but it touches global expectations in various areas, and tourism flows could also be implicated. The fact is that the United States is altering how it seeks to relate to the rest of the world, and it is a take it or leave it situation, not one that it tables for discussion in UN fora, etc.

There will definitely be winners and losers in the now emerging environment, with for instance huge dividends likely for artificial intelligence when the US moves multibillion dollars initiatives in that regard, as part of the showcase programmes of the incoming administration. All what ignites industry will also ignite banks, and implicitly travel either on account of new business links or extra incomes from newer opportunities from the new strategic drive, etc.

At the bonanza itself, over 300 participants from around the world are expected to converge in Dar es Salaam from March 11 to 13, where the minister showed Tanzania’s enthusiasm in hosting the upcoming forum. There will definitely be new data emerging as to what should be expected in tourism as a whole, even before the bit about gastronomy is taken up. Specialised spheres of government work in the US that have plenty to do with administering various aid activity to needy countries are being suspended right away.

The point here is that gastronomy is something that relates to some kind of festivity, not just the discovery of some delightful culinary formula specific to certain countries or cultures. When the situation on ‘what there is’ on the horizon is not good, people may even skip some keen points about gastronomy and focus on unfolding realities instead. The US contributes about 25 percent of total funding of all United Nations agencies, and it is re-examining most of this format.

That is why despite the convivial atmosphere tied up with the whole idea of gastronomy tourism, the sort of interest that tourists take in relation to what the country they visit can offer or the various hotels there can provide, there is a fly in the soup this time round. There is no way that a food tasting bonanza can proceed as if nothing is the matter when nearly everything that the ‘business as usual’ trajectory of global tourism has to rewrite its 2025 focus to take up the sort of initiatives that the incoming administrators in Washington take up. The delegates are unlikely to be in their happiest mood, and their hosts even more so gives the deep ties we have with aid agencies.