Brewing Success: MBA Students Explore Tanzanian Coffee & Tourism Marketing Strategies

Organized in collaboration with the Tanzanian Embassy in Tokyo, GLOBIS University students explored Tanzania’s culture, business landscape, and tourism potential through an interactive workshop. The event highlighted Tanzania’s thriving coffee industry, youthful population, and opportunities for Japan-Tanzania collaboration.

Through group discussions, cultural experiences like traditional attire and local cuisine, and expert insights on marketing strategies, students gained a deeper understanding of Tanzania’s strengths and challenges.

For a deeper dive into these insights, watch the full video!

Note, this article is based on an interview transcript. Some elements have been edited for clarity.

Kazuma Shirai: So when I mentioned that I work at Tanzania Embassy in Tokyo, people normally ask a lot of questions like, okay, where’s Tanzania? What kind of language do they speak? What about the food? They also tell me that they have never visited embassy before, so I wanted to provide an opportunity for them to do so.

And then talking about the group discussions, since today’s participants are all global students, we didn’t want to just organize a simple event where people just listen to a lecture. We wanted to provide an opportunity for them to use their knowledge that they gained at GLOBIS effectively. So that’s why we decided to include group discussions as well.

Tatsuya Kawamura: Today’s session focuses on two main topics. One is an overview of Tanzania culture, and the other one is Tanzania’s business landscape.

Federico Taicher: I learned a lot about the agricultural industry. I actually wasn’t aware that their coffee industry was this huge and this successful. I was deeply interested in learning about that. And although I knew in general that the African population is younger than other regions in the world, hearing about how young Tanzania was as a country and how much opportunity is there, it was pretty interesting to me.

Kazuma Shirai: It is predicted that by the year 2050, a quarter of the world’s population will be African. So it is crucial to understand what is happening in Africa and African countries.

Tanzania has an enormous potential to be a valuable trade partner for Japan and also for Japanese companies. Tanzania is attracting millions of tourists from all over the world. We try to increase the number of Japanese people visiting Tanzania, and also we’d like to promote Tanzania as a wonderful travel destination not only for Japanese but other Asian countries.

Tatsuya Kawamura: As for the cultural part, we experienced Tanzanian traditional attire with the support from Tanzanian embassy members, and also had a local cuisine lunch.

Minoru Katsunuma: I think this kind of event is very good to know what Tanzania is, what Tanzania culture is, and who Tanzania people are. By just reading a case versus contacting the Tanzania people and people doing the business in Tanzania is very, very different. It gives me an actual impact.

Tatsuya Kawamura: I was not familiar with Tanzania before meeting Kazuma-san, to be completely honest. I even didn’t know where Tanzania was before meeting Kazuma-san. But as we learned from our sessions today, we can’t overlook the growth and momentum of developing nations like Tanzania, especially when we are considering a globalization strategy from a long term perspective.

Federico Taicher: I really enjoyed the workshop. I think it was great. I love learning about Tanzania. I love learning about the culture, the history, the tourism in the country. I think that a Minoru, Kazuma, and Tatsuya did a great job organizing this, and I’m really grateful for their initiative to invite us all here. And I’m very grateful for the embassy’s hospitality. My biggest takeaway is that there is a lot of collaboration to be done between Japan and not only Tanzania, but many other countries as well. As aspiring business leaders, I think we all should be looking into what opportunities are out there for us to to try and bridge between Japan and all these nations in the world.

Tatsuya Kawamura: Collaborating with two industry experts, we prepared two questions. One is how to enhance the presence of a Tanzanian coffee in Japan, and the other one is how to increase the number of visitors from Japan to Tanzania. We discussed marketing strategy based on the questions.

Minoru Katsunuma: Organizing workshops is my favorite thing to do. I’m quite happy to see my classmates are happy. And the people in the Tanzania embassy are happy to be creating more, you know, happy moments in this global ecosystem. It’s very much exciting. I think that’s good.

Tatsuya Kawamura: So actually, I am very much influenced by Kazuma-san and his passion for Tanzania. Actually, he had a speech in our entrance ceremony at GLOBIS and I am very influenced by his speech.

Two points stood out to me from his speech. One is the average age of Tanzania is about 20 years old. And another one is a famous African proverb, which is if you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I have taken several classes with him and I’m very impressed with his business abilities and storytelling skills. So I wanted to learn from him. Also, I have never changed my job. So I think this event is a great opportunity for me to learn the norms or working ways outside of my company.

Kazuma Shirai: The biggest takeaway is that I can see things from a holistic point of view. My job is to link as many Japanese companies to Tanzanian counterparts as possible. So for me to understand their business model and also their needs is really, really important. The knowledge that I gained also helped me to realize both the strength and also the potential that Tanzania has, as well as the the challenges that Tanzania faces as a tourist destination.