Skift Take
The gloom-and-doom narrative that mainstream news loves to associate with Africa is no reflection on its tourism future — if its travel industry seizes the chance to innovate post pandemic.
In 2019, tourism made up 6.9 percent of Africa's gross domestic product or $169 billion, while contributing 24.7 million jobs, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
When international visitors vanished, the continent was faced with the reality of having a weaker regional travel market than most other parts of the world. Domestic travel made up just 55 percent of travel spending in 2019, versus 83 percent for North America, 74 percent in Asia Pacific and 64 percent in Europe.
Over a year later, key destinations such as Egypt and Rwanda are welcoming tourists back, but the chief hurdle to international tourism recovery remains lagging vaccine distributions and new variants forming in the region as a result.
"I don't believe it's all doom and gloom," said Naledi Khabo, CEO of the Africa Tourism Association (ATA), who will be speaking at Skift Global Forum in New York City on September 21-23. "Especially the work that the continent has done in terms of focusing on domestic and regional tourism over the last year, which I hope they continue to do in the parallel path to global recovery. I think that has helped sustain a lot of destinations who are especially heavily reliant on tourism."
Khabo discussed this and other developments — including NBA Africa's big push and the opportunities the ATA sees in diversifying tourism offerings on the continent beyond safaris — in the following Skift interview, which has been edited.
Skift Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Skift: What is the overall current state of tourism in Africa right now? Realizing, of course, that it’s a huge continent, but can you give us a general sense?
Naledi Khabo: Overall, on a country by country basis, everyone's trying to figure out what recovery through Covid looks like. I think we've learned the hard way, if we're thinking about post Covid, that measuring stick just sort of keeps getting longer and longer, as the variants continue to mutate. So what this recovery process looks like is partially a focus on rolling out the vaccinations, making sure that Covid protocols are in place, at the destination when tourists arrive.
Looking at initiatives that people have been talking about for a long time, I think we're
[caption id="attachment_441330" align="alignright" width="239"] Naledi Khabo, CEO of Africa Tourism Association, will be at Skift Global Forum 2021 in New York City.[/caption]
seeing a lot mo
