ECONOMY: Tourism Still an Elusive Benefit for Southern Africa

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Jan 7 2002 (IPS) - The end of year holiday season in Swaziland and neighbouring countries brought an upswing in tourism business that was a relief to hotel operators, but highlighted a disappointing year when once again the unique attractions of the African subcontinent eluded a majority of the world’s travellers.

“Most hotels were sold-out at Christmas and New Years,” says a spokesperson for Swaziland’s hotel and tourism industry. “The South Africans are travelling again.”

Just as South Africa’s economic output is the dynamo that powers the region’s economy, dominating the performance of the 14- member states that comprise the Southern Africa Development Countries (SADC), the country’s people account for a majority of the tourism activity in the subcontinent.

South Africans comprise 85 percent of all visitors to neighbouring Swaziland, with a mixture of Europeans, North Americans and Asians making up the rest. It was South Africans who filled Swazi hotel rooms and game parks at the end of 2001. However, preliminary figures show tourism down 15 percent last year in Swaziland, in a country that is eager to attract new visitors and the hard currency they bring.

In Mozambique to the north, tourism was up from 2000, but that was because the previous year saw a series of devastating cyclones that flooded the southern provinces, generating international attention and dissuading tourists, although most of the country was unaffected by flooding.

Still, the upswing in tourist activity last year failed to bring a return of the visitor numbers seen in pre-flood 1999.

“Tourism patterns take time to set,” says Eduardo Masuku, who runs a fleet of two tour buses through downtown Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. “The cruise ships come first, in greater numbers as the city port is rehabilitated, and then the tourists by air will arrive.”

To accommodate them will be an expanding road and rail infrastructure to shuttle visitors to new hotels and resorts on the Indian Ocean provinces.

Ted Reilly, founder of the Big Game Parks of Swaziland, notes, “95 percent of tourists who come to Africa go straight to Egypt, see the antiquities, and go home. That leaves the rest of Africa to compete for the remaining 5 percent of tourists, who tend to go to established locations like the game parks of Tanzania and South Africa.”

Marketing in 2001 to lure worldwide attention for Africa remained stagnant, say industry sources, although regional bodies like SADC and virtually all nations individually had tourism boards to publicise their attractions.

Swaziland finally set up a long-delayed tourism board to coordinate tourism policy between private operators and government, the latter that included tourism development as an economic priority.

“Mining has pretty much played out, industry is problematic and agriculture is limited by land,” says Reilly. “That leaves tourism as a viable growth industry that has the immense added advantage of being environmentally sustainable.”

By providing revenue that finances the preservation of endangered species and their habitats, tourism provides nation- building benefits that other industries, which like industry pollute or like mining deplete finite resources, cannot, says Reilly.

The national governments of the sub-continent agree. No nation is more aggressive in marketing itself than South Africa, where Africa’s oldest game park, Kruger Park in the Mphumalanga Province, is still a major draw. South Africa’s developed infrastructure greatly facilitates the movement of tourists to historic sites, scenic attractions, and game parks.

Botswana took a significant stride toward attracting tourism with its decision in 2001 to permit itinerant San people, the so- called bushmen, to return to their native hunting grounds as custodians of large tracts of the Central Kalahari Desert.

The government had previously restricted the San to virtual internment camps, in a policy that critics said was meant to ensure tribal lands would be available for diamond excavation. It now seemed to agree with Swaziland’s Reilly that what tourist want to see are unique and pristine environments featuring native peoples living lives as they have traditionally known them.

“To ensure bigger tourist numbers in 2002, the smartest thing policymakers have done was freed the San to move and hunt as they have done for thousands of years, allowing tourists to catch an unobtrusive glimpse,” says a tour guide with Penduka Safaris. The firm relocated from South Africa to give its clients a chance to see Africa in a rare raw state.

The drop in tourism numbers experienced worldwide following the terrorist attacks on the United States in September also affected Southern Africa, and industry analysts say only when people feel comfortable travelling once more will the tourism scene improve from Tanzania to Madagascar.

“The nations of the region, individually and collectively, need to have all the elements in place once tourism picks up worldwide, and be prepared to capture the market,” says Elsa Shongwe, a travel agent in Nelspruit, South Africa. “The proposed roadways have to be paved, the hotel rooms ready, and the marketing strategy in place.”

The region’s tourism hopes experienced disappointments last year when South Africa failed in its bid to host an upcoming soccer World Cup series and the Olympic Games. Future bids for these events are assured, but while South Africa and its neighbours await such high-profile attractions to show off the region, old encumbrances to tourism remain.

One example struck in Swaziland on Christmas Eve. Dozens of South African tourists had to spend the night in their cars before closed border post gates, after being led by erroneous publicity to believe that the border posts would be open 24 hours a day during the holidays.

“Firstly, there is no reason why a nation that seeks higher tourism would not keep its border posts open all night during the peak period,” says an irate executive with the tourism bureau. “Such glitches have always hindered tourism development in Africa. Things will only improve when there is a commitment to competency.”