Aligning with the state’s COVID-19 narrative in Tanzania: insights from the tourism sector in Arusha

Tanzania, a hybrid regime, was not immune to COVID-19. However, President Magufuli downplayed the virus’s seriousness in the country, declaring Tanzania free of it in June 2020 and suppressing public discussion on the subject. No curfew was imposed, and citizens were ordered to continue their activities as normal. Despite this, global restrictions had considerable negative impact on the tourism sector, the second-largest gross domestic product (GDP) contributor in 2019. Using sensemaking theory and data from focus groups and interviews, this study investigates the influential information sources, sensemaking processes and alignment with the state narrative among tourism workers in Arusha, a city that has undergone complex, tourism-driven, urban transformation. The findings reveal how various information sources led to different forms of conformity and alignment with the state narrative. The study contributes a more nuanced understanding of citizens’ sensemaking during COVID-19 in a hybrid political regime. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . This article is available Open Access thanks to the LUP Authors Fund.