ECONOMY: Expanding Southern Africa’s Tourism Attractions to the World

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 14 2002 (IPS) - The time has come for the 90 percent of tourists who visit Africa annually to move down from the antiquities of Egypt, their one and only destination on the continent, and explore the wonders that await them at the opposite, southern end of the continent.

This is the message tourism ministers of the 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are publicising in an unprecedented coordinated plan of action to boost awareness of their countries.

SADC comprises Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

‘’After September 11, a new world map of tourism was forged, and we need to determine a place on it for SADC countries,” said Nando Bodha, the Mauritian minister of tourism on a visit to South Africa last month. ôThe region’s tourism infrastructure û our hotels, airports, ground transportation, game parks and tourist attractions û has never been better, and it is improving, thanks to a coordinated plan of action among all tourism officials,” says Stella Lukhele, Swaziland’s minister of tourism.

The catalyst of this year’s push to raise the profile of the African sub-continent among world travellers was this month’s World Summit on Sustainable Development. The city of Johannesburg, which hosted the event, dressed itself up as a sophisticated yet fun metropolis that embodied the style and qualities of Africa while offering visitors developed-world comforts like five-star hotels and restaurants, high-tech amusements and museums, and world-class theatre.

ôThe summit went a long way in changing global negative perceptions of Johannesburg,” says Thandi Davis, communications director of the Johannesburg World Summit Company, which coordinated the event. The negative perceptions had mostly to do with crime and urban decay, Davis says, and the summit instilled confidence among South Africans that they could host huge global events successfully, while making city residents proud of what could be achieved.

Just as important as attracting Europeans, North Americans and Asians to the region (Australians also comprise a large minority of tourists to the sub-continent), the area nations seek to induce their own nationals to visit other neighbouring countries.

Toward this end, a uniformed visa, or ôunivisa”, is being considered that will enable anyone û African or foreigner û to travel to all SADC nations with just one visa.

Sources tell IPS that Zimbabwe is holding up this vision because of the nation’s security concerns, and its desire to be able to stringently screen foreigners who seek entry to the strife-torn country. However, a ‘’univisa” will become a reality within five years, most tourism minister agreed when polled by the SADC secretariat.

Tourism is the world’s number one industry, meaning that the hotels, airlines, visitors’ attractions, cruise ships and souvenir businesses rake in more money than all other commercial ventures. Every town and nation in the world wants a piece of this lucrative action. What has prevented Africa from fulfilling its potential as a tourist destination has been negative perceptions about the continent as a place of armed conflict, other forms of strife, and natural and man-made disasters. These perceptions are fuelled by news stories that concentrate on these aspects.

ôA contributing factor to the sluggish growth in tourism here is that when most foreigners think of Africa, they think of game parks. If they don’t care for wild animals, they cross Africa off their list,” says Zelda Matola, a travel agent in Sandton, South Africa, the cynosure of the world summit activity.

Matola and the rest of the region’s tourism industry is frustrated that the world’s tourists are unaware of the breathtaking natural beauty in climates like Cape Town’s that are more European than tropical. The region offers some lively adventure tourism opportunities, from bungee jumping off a bridge at Victoria Falls spanning Zambia and Zimbabwe, hang-gliding off the sea cliffs of South Africa, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and scuba diving through extraordinary Indian Ocean coral reefs off Mozambique, Mauritius and Seychelles.

To celebrate tourism month, which the tourism industry recognises as September each year, the Mpumalanga Province, northeast of Johannesburg, is inaugurating on Sep 22 a ‘4×4′ Ebutseni route that will allow off-road vehicles to drive through rugged mountain scenery. The route addresses environmentalists’ efforts to divert off-road vehicles from ecologically sensitive areas where vehicles can destroy animal breeding grounds and indigenous plant life.

Tourism numbers are not stagnant, indicating that efforts to promote the region are beginning to bear fruit. The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) reports that tourism arrivals to the 14 SADC states grew from 9.7 million in 1996 to 12 million in 2001. Revenue earned from these tourists grew from 3.7 billion U.S. dollars in 1996 to 5.3 billion U.S. dollars last year. The WTO predicts that 12.3 million tourists will enjoy the sub-continent this year, a slight improvement over 2001 but an encouraging one when the drop in worldwide tourism following the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on the United States is considered.

The boom in regional airport construction and upgrades continues with Mozambique’s intention to build a new airport at Maputo, and the announcement this week of the refurbishing of the South African airport at Port Elizabeth. The regional airport expansion is almost entirely dedicated to the belief that tourism numbers are improving.

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg, city officials and travel authorities are trumpeting the news that a survey taken by ‘The Mercer Human Resource Consulting Company’ found that Johannesburg is actually the city of bargains, as the least expensive major metropolitan centre in the world to visit and live in.

Hong Kong, the world’s most expensive place, should be worried.