Dar Es Salaam, Feb 10 (IANS): Tanzania recorded a 57.7 per cent rise in arrivals of foreign tourists who visited the East African nation in 2022, the country's statistics authority said.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday said the number of foreign tourists who visited Tanzania between January and December 2022 increased to 1,454,920, up from 922,692 recorded during the corresponding period in 2021, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The noticeable increase in foreign tourist arrivals of 532,228 is equivalent to an increase of 57.7 per cent," Daniel Masolwa, NBS Acting Director for Economic Statistics, told a news conference in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania.

Masolwa attributed the rise in foreign tourist arrivals to the lifting of lockdowns by most countries that were imposed following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, adding that the government's continued efforts to promote tourist attractions also played a major role.