Africa needs to make the most of tourism surge
According to the World Tourism Organization, Africa registered the highest tourist growth on average compared to other regions with an increase of 8.6 percent ahead of the current global average of seven percent.
In 2017 alone, Africa received almost 63 million visitors which brought an impressive revenue of $37 billion. It is estimated that by 2030, Africa’s tourist figure would have reached 134 million people. The market value of this sector stands at $165 billion.
The African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063 and the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development recognize the importance of the tourism sector’s potential to absorb unemployment, preserve the environment and effective resources management.
There are numerous reasons why tourist numbers are rising on the yearto-year basis in Africa.
In the last 15 years, the world witnessed a shift in the global tourism sector trends. There was a major shift from the usual movements from Global North to Global South to South to South movement of tourists.
The rise of the Chinese economy to number two in the world and particularly its 400 million middle class accounts for a large number of these new tourists on the global stage. Africa has been a beneficiary of the Chinese tourists including those from other emerging markets such as India, Brazil, Persian Gulf states and Russia.
In recent years, Africa and much of the developing world have benefited from the tensions between China and the US. The flourishing partnership between Africa and China through the Forum on China-africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has facilitated and attracted more Chinese tourists to the continent.
Africa has some of the most impressive tourist destinations, such as the many world-renowned attractions in South Africa, Victoria Falls shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe, Egyptian Pyramids, beaches in Gambia to the wildebeest migration in Maasai Mara in Kenya.
The continent also has many unexplored and undeveloped attractive destinations in Ethiopia’s ancient Christian kingdom. There are other marvels in Sudan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and the Kalahari and Sahara deserts.
While Africa makes remarkable strides in the tourism sector, there are many possible hindrances too. At the center of these lies the lack of coordination.
There is a need to coordinate infrastructure both physical and digital to speak to one another for easy movement of tourists across the vast continent.
Tenuous security is also a blight. The abduction of Europeans by pirates off the coast of Somalia, perennial conflicts in North Africa, parts of West, East and Central Africa make it hard to develop a common African brand as a tourist destination.
Most African countries therefore market their own exclusive tourist destinations independent of the entire continent.
The images of chaos in Cape Town and Joburg work against the development of tourism sector. The gang violence in Cape Town which has brought the military on the streets sends negative signals to tourists, as do the police raids in Joburg and reported crimes at airports, on Table Mountain and in Mpumalanga.
Although the outbreak of the deadly Ebola in the eastern Congo appears well-contained, it is often reported overseas as if the whole of the African Continent is affected.
To overcome these challenges, the AU and Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECS) should work closely with the private sector in designing strategies and tactics to attract more visitors to the continent.
* David Monyae is the director of the Centre for Africa-china Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
A new group calling for the UK government to spearhead a shift to vegan diets is preparing a campaign of mass civil disobedience.
The group, Animal Rebellion, is joining forces with Extinction Rebellion to stage sit-ins and block roads in London for two weeks in October, independent.co.uk wrote.
Members say that as well as supporting Extinction Rebellion’s demands, they want ministers to end subsidies for producing meat and dairy, and to encourage farmers to switch to growing crops to drastically cut the UK’S emissions of damaging greenhouse gases.
They also want the government to support the public in adopting plant-based diets to help the target of reaching a zero-carbonproducing society.
Animal Rebellion, which has local groups in places including Manchester and Bristol, says it already has thousands of supporters, and expects at least 10,000 volunteers will join its protests beginning on October 7 in London.
Organizers have not yet revealed the exact place but, like Extinction Rebellion, are preparing “civil disobedience” and disruption on the streets to draw attention to how production of meat and dairy are “contributing to the climate emergency”.
They point to advice from the UN and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as research by Harvard University on reducing the world’s meat consumption.
Harvard concluded that if the land in Britain currently used to grow feed for livestock was used instead for grains, beans, fruit, nuts and vegetables for humans, it would be the equivalent of saving nine years of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In addition, the food grown could feed everyone with no need for imports, the study said.
Alex Lockwood, an Animal Rebellion organizer and spokesman, told The Independent: “The destructive nature of the animal agriculture and fishing industries are contributing hugely to the climate emergency — they are a leading cause of carbon emissions.”
One estimate puts the industries at 51 percent of global CO2 emissions annually, but more conservative estimates say they account for 14-20 percent, Lockwood said.
Much Amazon deforestation — through growing soya for livestock, an ‘inefficient use of land’ — and water pollution is also down to meat production, studies have shown.
Animal Rebellion is calling on the government to take initiatives such as working with the Vegan Society on a campaign the society is running called Grow Green.
“This isn’t scaremongering by animal activists, this is respected organizations like the UN, IPCC and the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission of the RSA saying we must switch to plant-based diets,” Lockwood added.
He said some members, but not all, were prepared to be arrested, and they were “deeply sorry” for any inconvenience to the public.
“Like Extinction Rebellion, we are collectively of the view that, given the failure of world leaders to date, disruption is now necessary to get anything like commensurate change. If there was a better, less disruptive way of doing this we would do that instead.”