Globalaffairs

Issue 2/April-May 2007
By Aurora M.Alcojor

From a forgotten continent to a desired one. The tourism growth in Africa could mean the definitive take-off of the battered African economy. But what is in exchange?

According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in 2006 Africa had the highest world increase in tourism (8% ahead of the world average with 5,5%). According to UNWTO World Tourism Barometer Sub-Saharan Africa hosted 25,6 million visitors in 2006 – 23,4 million last year- and North Africa hosted 14,7 million against 13,9 million the last year.

Obviously this increase is due to its departure position: tourism levels were extremely lower than in other traditionally tourist places, even so data are unquestionable: the attractive of the black continent is clear and travellers ask for it as main holiday destination. Furthermore something else is changing: the average expense of tourists in Africa has increase more than in the rest of the world (2005 data).

Africa is in vogue and its political leaders are ready to take advantage of the situation. On the other hand the UN tries to manage this situation for the good of Africa. There is consensus regarding the departure point: tourism is beneficial for the development of poor countries and it has to be boosted. The end is clear: in order to become an income source, tourism must be sustainable and it must not damage the environment or natural resources.

In order to help developing countries the UN together with some African countries and the UNWTO have launched several projects to promote sustainable tourism such as “Sustainable Tourism – Poverty Elimination” (ST-PE). In November 2006 during an annual meeting of the Executive Council of the UNWTO the contribution of tourism to economic and social development in the framework of the UN Millennium Development Goals was stated. Some of the proposals of such organism are: “Managing site congestion and enhancing infrastructure, integrating into peace processes, embracing Information and Communication Technology into all aspects of management, intensifying the fight against poverty and preparing to manage crises ”.

Despite the intentions may seem pretentious they are good, but how to realize them? Is a non aggressive tourism feasible in African countries? Can Ecotourism be more successful than white sand beaches and luxurious resorts offered by countries such as Ghana and Senegal (the called African Caribbean)? It is not easy to answer this question but some countries are willing to say yes.

“Tourism can be the driver for poverty reduction and the agent for improvement in human life conditions across the continent. Africa is the most promising ecotourism product in the world, we must develop it with passion, profitably, through partnerships at all levels and above all with a strategic vision and the commitment from the governments of Africa,” said the Tourism Minister of Mauritius, Mr. Nandcoomar Bodha in 2003 . But in order to do so some problems have to be solved.

First tourism in Africa is conditioned by a very worrying factor for the black continent. Tourist continuity is seriously affected by political and social instability, conflict and obviously violence. Likewise natural disasters, plagues and other alert situations can provoke a sharp decrease in tourist demand and foreign investments. From this point of view it is said that investment in an instable sector can be counter-productive for the country and even provoke financial losses.

This is true but many economic activities in such countries are exposed to economic variables, in fact, demand fluctuations in tourism industry are less serious than the ones resulting from raw material exports and many African countries depend on these exports . Indeed experience has demonstrated that raw material exports are very instable and many sharp decreases in prices have happened causing the impoverishment of the exporting countries.
Second, a negative tourism factor in regions where there are not big companies able to manage the whole process is the leakage, in other words, the money that is lost in middlemen and does not have any good effect on the African country. Thus, a large amount of the tourists’ money goes to transnational tour operators and it is spent to pay goods and services imported for exclusive tourism use. The World Bank estimates this leakage to be 55 per cent for the typical developing country, but it can be substantially higher . In fact, some estimations point out that when a Western tourist pays a trip in an agency the most money goes to middlemen – air companies, transnational hotel chains, etc- thus just 400 euros out of 2000 spent by an average traveller goes for the Third World country .

In order to fight against these losses, African governments are developing goals to increase the percentage of profits kept in the country and to invest these incomes in other productive sectors and services. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) understands tourism as an instrument to promote change and tries to link sustainable tourism with poverty elimination. But so as to link them it is necessary the Government’s involvement because these links do not occur spontaneously . For example in 1995 Western Africa created the Slaves route, an attraction to promote cultural tourism. In Zambia, for example, privatization of game lodges and hunting concessions is regulated on an international competitive bid basis, but to encourage local investors and particularly indigenous entrepreneurs, certain leases and hunting concessions have been reserved for domestic bidders.

In fact, the complexities of tourism development demands deep cooperation and involvement of the public and private sectors. The initiative of the WTO Secretary-General in proposing at the 2001 Seoul/Osaka General Assembly a specific program was aimed at ensuring development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Integrated Tourism Development Programme (ITDP) included different activities such as maintaining good tourism practices at borders, tourist transport points (airports, train and bus stations, other transport terminals), and tourist sites to improve tourist arrivals, tourist satisfaction and confidence about tourist safety; assessing the creation of a national tourism satellite account statistical system to improve knowledge and raise awareness regarding the importance of the tourism sector, which facilitates private investments; inventory of tourism resources at the national and regional levels; institutional and legal framework organizing hotel classification systems, emergency and health services, consumer protection, protocols of tourist health protection; raising public awareness regarding the economic and social effects of tourism; tourism Development Financial Plan; development of human resources; tourism marketing strategy and promotion programme; strengthening of the technical and managerial capabilities of public-sector tourism officials.

Moreover public services can achieve an interrelation between the big tourist centres and the traditional services in the area: creating new jobs– it is estimated that for every hotel room, one to two jobs are created directly or indirectly - ; boosting traditional craft resurgence – souvenirs –; creating local business offering goods and services to visitors; training for specific jobs such as guides, diving teachers, cultural hosts… As stated by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development “the economic profits of tourism can contribute to reduce poverty but to achieve this goal we have to reinforce local capabilities”.

Environmental degradation is a consequence that has been traditionally associated with mass tourism development and this factor should be taken into account in Africa. Due to the great natural richness of Africa mass tourism can seriously damage the natural system.

In order to avoid this situation, governments and world organizations have decided to go for ecotourism a “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people” (Ecotourism definition according to the International Ecotourism Society). In other words, incomes resulting from tourism should be reinvested in the conservation and improvement of natural heritage: “Tourism not only facilitates the creation of jobs but also contributes to the distribution of wealth among regions of different income, reduces the financing period of new infrastructure and helps in the conservation of monuments. ”. In fact, Ecotourism is beneficial for rural, mountainous and inner areas where tourism is the only industry that can be successful once traditional economic activities have disappeared in many African villages.

The Ecotourism target is to develop new areas in the countries with respect for artistic, archaeological, natural and cultural heritage. Many African countries are investing in Ecotourism since the year 2002 was declared the International Ecotourism Year by the Economic and Social Committee of Europe. An example of such tourism is Botswana a country placed in the North of South Africa with less than 2 million population. Botswana has many natural resources and it has set aside 17% of the surface to develop national parks and 20% to protected areas for wild life. At the beginning of the 90’s political leaders realized of the country’s dependence on diamonds market therefore they decided to develop tourism in a particular way. Their policy tries to minimize the tourism negative impact limiting the number of visitors and trying to promote local development due to the fact that only a third of tourists’ spending are kept in the country. Furthermore, hotels and tourist resorts are organized so as to satisfy the tourist needs but considering the local population needs. On the other hand, they decided to increase the number of destinations. Thus, taking advantage of natural landscapes they decided to attack visitors with ecological interests.

Another example is Kenya where tourism is the second most important economic activity in the national economy (after the agriculture). The Kenyan government has embarked on many innovative projects so as to balance the tourism demand but preserving the environment. One of these projects is the safaris (a word that springs from Swahili) they are trips aiming to enjoy nature and wild life. Tourism is 11% of the labour force in Kenya and this country together with seven countries - Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania- participates in a COSMAR public-private partnership to promote responsible tourism. One target of responsible tourism is “ensuring that communities benefit from revenue accrued in their areas” said the ecotourism development manager, Mr. Marion Teichmann. According to him “One aspect of our programme is creating awareness and understanding of the environment, livelihood and challenges of the local communities. We offer a day tour where guests visit a school. They get to speak with teachers and students and learn more about education efforts in Kenya. Once we create awareness, many visitors want to help”.

But not only tourism allows other sectors development. The relation is bidirectional and of course infrastructures improvement, telecommunications and financial services are essential for tourism boom. Indeed the lack of infrastructures such as paved roads, electricity, water supply and suitable places to host tourists are daily problems in all African countries .

In addition to these deficiencies we have to talk about another problem: the lack of an intraregional tourism due to low standard of living, a mentality that does not see tourism as a leisure activity and the bad means of transportation – it is more expensive to travel within African countries than to go from an European capital to an African one: the air connections are almost non-existent and there is not a rail and road network. Nevertheless, this situation has improved in the last decade-.

Furthermore, Africa needs to improve its image so as to remove prejudices about the continent. Tourism Africa 2006 Strategic Business Meeting sponsored by the World Travel & Tourism Council took place in Geneva (Italy) and there were many important international and African institutions. The event aimed at promoting African destinations and tourist activities, fostering financing and investment on tourist projects and “preserving African heritage by ensuring the active participation of institutions in charge of the sustainable, economic and social development”.

Africa as a whole suffers from an image problem due to media coverage. The first Regional Conference on Tourism Communications (TOURCOM, Africa) ,– it was attended by some 350 tourism officials and media representatives from 43 countries – concluded that rather than blame the media for this situation, participants were urged to develop an effective working relationship with the media.

In any case, despite governments and international organisms try to control tourism, still there are many risks in mass tourism. For instance, some authors pointed that the creation of new resorts can cause land expropriation, an agriculture areas reduction, village displacement for the construction of huge hotel resorts, local workers exploitation, new prostitution networks associated with the called sexual tourism and above all the wild water consumption. This scarce resource in Africa can be essential in tourism because a tourist consumes 10 times more water than an African citizen. Moreover the luxurious tourism needs swimming pools, golf courses and other non desirable elements .

As for environmental consequences, there is no doubt that most natural areas are fragile ecosystems that cannot stand great disturbances and mass tourism increases tension in protected areas therefore it should be a mechanism controlling all this indiscriminate growth . Tourism can be an open door to development or the last blow to a much punished Africa.

Aurora M.Alcojor
Journalist

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