The Relevance Of Tourism To Africa

It would be imprudent of us to draw a cordon sanitaire between South Africa and the rest of Africa, and would be equally imprudent to draw a cordon sanitaire between us and the moral, psychological, political and social complexities of the continent - for it is not only South Africa that needs to be heard but it is Africa as a whole that has many tales of woe and wonder to tell.

Writes: Edwin Sipho Rihlamvu

A recent IMF report notes that South Africa accounts for 6% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population but over one third of its GDP (on a purchasing power parity basis). This is more than three times as much as Nigeria, the region’s second largest economy and almost 40 times as much as Mali. Our investments in the rest of Africa have more than doubled since 2000; - in 2004 it stood at $3.7 billion.

Unfortunately, there is a dogged mindset about South Africa – and indeed about Africa – which places many critics in a permanently pessimistic frame of mind. It crops up now and then in the media and elsewhere, though does happily seem to be on the wane.

The special report on Business in Africa by the Economist of 11 May 2007 observes that the “optimists may yet prove to be right” and speaks about “the flicker of a brighter future” for the continent. The pessimistic mindset finds it difficult if not impossible to believe that Africa can be a place of efficiency and progress. It just cannot comprehend the concept of an African century ahead, let alone one based on an African Renaissance. It assumes the worst about black leadership, whether in matters of purely private expenditure on a house or a place of well-earned eminence in the business world after generations of being shut out.

It concentrates on the corrupted rather than the corrupter, when it comes to dubious commercial relations between developing and developed states. This mindset must, in short, be eradicated. Since the start of this decade, many of Africa’s economies have grown faster and more consistently.

One reason is rapidly increasing demand for Africa’s exports. Another is generally better governance. Investors are taking a fresh look at many African countries. However, at least 300 million Africans are still very poor, and Africa will need to grow a lot faster and sustain that growth. There is much work to be done.

Businesses which trade throughout Africa every day tend to be more in touch with the realities of doing business in Africa than even the best informed donor. So we are in business, but there are skeptics – maybe even cynics - who feel that Africa should be consigned to the waste basket of history.

Tourism

In the last twenty five years tourism in Africa as a whole has been quite positive. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of international arrivals more than doubled, rising from 7.3 million to 15 million in 1990, while in the following decade the number almost doubled again! During the period 1990 – 2000 tourism in the region grew two points higher than tourism worldwide – an average annual rate of 6.4% compared to 4.2% for the world.

International tourist arrivals are highly concentrated in a relatively small number of destinations. According to available data, in a region with over fifty countries and territories, six countries received over 1 million tourists – South Africa (6.8 million), Tunisia (6 million), Morocco (5.5 million), Zimbabwe (1.9 million), Algeria (1.2 million) and Kenya (1.1 million), totaling altogether almost 68% of all international arrivals in the region.

North Africa is currently the leading tourist receiver region, with 39% of the regional total, followed by Southern Africa, with 27%. Both sub-regions attract two-thirds of total arrivals in the region, while East Africa receives 23%. The smallest shares go to West Africa (9%) and Central Africa (2%).

The year 2007 has started on a higher than expected note for global tourism. From January through April, international tourist arrivals worldwide rose by over 6% to 252 million, representing an additional 15 million arrivals as against the same period in 2006, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer.

Asia and the Pacific (+9%) achieved the strongest growth, followed by Africa (+8%), the Middle East (+8%) and Europe (+6%). Although arrivals to the Americas (+4%), showed the slowest growth rate among the world regions during the first four months of 2007, this performance is nevertheless very positive as the region doubled the 2007 forecast growth (+2%).

Africa has outpaced all other regions with almost twice the rate of global growth reaching 8.1% in 2006, following an already strong 2005. This star performance was led by Sub-Saharan Africa (+9.4%), while North Africa (+5.8%) also ended the year above average. Major destinations such as South Africa, Kenya and Morocco all continued to post excellent results.

"Despite downside risks facing global tourism twelve months ago - in particular terrorism, health scares due to avian flu and rising oil prices - 2006 was another year of good growth above the long-term forecast rate of 4.1%, backed up by one of the longest periods of sustained economic expansion", according to UNWTO Secretary General Francesco Frangialli.

One of the features of 2006 has been the continued positive results of emerging destinations, underscoring the links to economic progress. As one of the most dynamic economic sectors, Tourism has a key role among the instruments to fight against poverty, thus becoming a primary tool for sustainable development.

Around the world, tourism destinations are facing increasing pressures on their natural, cultural and socio-economic environments – Africa is no exception – we have to move on this and capitalize on the opportunity. Tourism is globally accepted as one of the world’s fastest growing economic sectors. Africa as a continent has so much to offer.

The splendour of Africa with its unbelievable potential is highly desired and has the opportunity to position itself amidst this high growth global economic activity as a prime global tourist destination. After all, Africa is still custodian to the wild lands and cultures and has a deep concern for nature in its natural form.

Africa’s tourism growth is, however, hindered by various factors. These factors include an inadequately developed product and service base, a poor perception of the safety of tourists, civil wars and conflicts, often lacking infrastructure and delivery infrastructure, insufficient international and especially domestic marketing, a shortage of well-trained frontline tourism staff, a limitation of international flights, sectoral fragmentation and weak intra and inter linkages within the private and public sectors.

This beautiful continent can also do much better than the approximately 37 million arrivals or around 4.5% of the 806 million global arrivals (2005). Africa received only a small share, 3.1%, of the US$680 billion spent globally (2005) by tourists.

Africa can do better in the new millennium by harnessing its abundant natural and cultural resources with good quality infrastructure and tourist facilities for the ever-increasing discerning tourist while pragmatically changing the perception that it is a high-risk destination to visit.

Africans are increasingly teasing ways of urgently finding an approach which offers a competitive advantage and a fresh appeal whilst it boasts the most scenic portfolio of snow-covered mountains in winter with ski slopes, sandy beaches, forests, desert dunes, grassland and savannah, rocky shores and coral reefs, not forgetting its lazy rivers and streams.

The remarkable biological and cultural diversity of Africa makes our continent most attractive to visitors. We have a wealth of cultural and natural heritage resources, which can be enjoyed by local people and domestic, regional and international visitors traveling in Africa as tourists.

The customs and traditions of our people, their heritage, history and way of life is something to be celebrated by communities and shared with domestic and international tourists. We had to develop tourism with dignity, encouraging mutual respect and promoting pride in the diversity of cultural resources in our continent.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the experiences, lifestyles, music, traditions, the history of our peoples have remained hidden even from our own people and the tourist, in addition to our archaeological treasure trove. South Africa, just like all countries of the continent, has a proud past with valuable environmental assets that can be utilized to grow a brilliant future.

In this regard our point of departure in Africa is to aim at the generation of sustainable long term competitive growth and development and the restructuring of our magnificent region with its unimaginable tourism potential in both a responsible and sustainable way. A possible approach is to focus on economic development in two ways, i.e. at a sectoral level as well as at a spatial level.

African governments always reconsider the roles and responsibilities of appropriate existing institutions and find pragmatic ways to collaborate and lead efficiently and effectively in facilitating an enabling policy environment, appropriate infrastructure and the right quality and quantity of human resources with a view of reducing conflict and healing its related wounds.

Undoubtedly this will bring about significant private sector investment and assist the involvement of local communities in tourism ventures and offer the tourist greater product variety. Local communities have to be assisted to proactively participate in creating a charming, safe and peaceful atmosphere that will entice travelling to and visitation of our country side to enjoy the magnificence of our African culture.

Conclusion

One of our colleagues, said at the World Economic Forum last January: “I don't like how Africa is branded.” If you look at the international media, you can easily get the impression that Africa is a single country dominated by war and famine. While we don’t plan to deny or minimize Africa’s problems, we need more people to recognize Africa’s diversity of challenge and opportunity.

Put succinctly, if we want to protect our own prosperity we had better be part of the attack on poverty – poverty of resource, hope and opportunity. That could be achieved through tourism!

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