Tourism ministers from across the African continent have agreed to form a uniting forum in order to address cross-cutting issues affecting the growth of the industry across the globe.
Derek Hanekom, the South African Minister of Tourism said the move was inspired by the realisation that what happens in other African countries affected the rest of Africa, during a panel discussion moderated by CNN’s anchor and journalist,Richard.
This was during the annual INDABA 2016 travel show in Durban, South Africa. Ranked as the third largest annual tourism expo globally and the largest in Africa. It typically attracts between 8,000 and 11,000 of Africa’s tourism leaders, policy makers, global buyers and travel media seeking to promote tourism as a means of Africa’s economic growth and transformation.
Last year, Uganda held her first Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo but it probably did not gather an equivalent crowd as INDABA.
CNN’s Richard puts panelits, L-R; S.A Minister of Tourism-Derek Hane,CEO Tourism-Mwatsatsi and Deputy Minister of Tourism-T, on the hot seat to explain why tourism growth across the continent is struggling.
We are all united in our aspiration to build and brand Africa as a continent of unparalleled opportunity. We have joined hands to make tourism a sector of hope and progress for our people. We must now focus on concrete actions to achieve our aspirations.”said Agnes Akiror, Uganda’s Tourism Minister.
Akiror also confirmed that there was a meeting among these ministers who agreed to complement each other rather than compete. The Ministers agreed to start this cohesion at the regional bloc level on the continent and then later, through their respective heads of state, take the debate to the African Union, where a concrete decision will be taken.
Despite all its challenges, tourism on the African continent has been growing higher than anyway else in the world, boosting economies through creation of employment, foreign exchange and government taxes.
In Uganda alone, tourism overtook diaspora remittances and coffee to become Uganda’s biggest foreign exchange earner at $1.4b in 2013.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation estimates that international tourist arrivals on the continent will grow by 4% this year. Tourist arrivals in Africa are expected to reach 130 million by 2030. This is more than double the 50 million arrivals we are currently receiving.
However, despite such positive developments, Hanekom said tourism in Africa still suffers from a competitive open skies policy where many African countries close their skies to African competitors in a bid to protect their local airlines. This, he said is one of the things that the tourism ministers forum could address.
“Air transport services remain a key constraint. Many major airlines fly to Africa from North America, Europe, and Asia. But, once visitors reach the continent, they encounter difficulties in travelling from country to country,” Hanekom says.
“If one quarter of African countries were to implement the Open Skies for Africa decision and facilitate greater air access between our countries, an additional 155,000 jobs and $1.3b in GDP could be generated, with obvious benefits for tourism.
Akiror said that in addition to opening up their skies to facilitate better intra-continental travel for visitors to the continent, the ministers had discussed the possibility of allowing Africans to travel within nations on the continent using their national identity cards, without compromising the security of nations, in the far off future
Apart from Akiror, Uganda is represented by tourism permanent secretary, Patrick Mugoya, Uganda Wildlife Authority, Civil Aviation Authority and Ugandan High Commission in South Africa. Eleven tour operators are representing the private sector.
“The Ebola outbreak which took place in West Africa resulted in dwindling tourism numbers in South Africa. Never mind that West Africa is closer to Europe than it is to South Africa. The actions of others elsewhere in Africa affect the image of us all as a continent because the world looks at Africa as one big country,” Hanekom said.
Watch Video of What Uganda’s Tourism has to offer
Source; New Vision. This story has been edited to fit online publication based on the principles of writing/editing for the web.
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