Corporate News
By JOHN MBARIA
In Summary
- African tourists form the largest segment of the tourists arriving in the continent. For instance, in 2009, regional visitors accounted for 46 per cent of tourist arrivals in Africa, compared to 31 per cent from Europe, 4 per cent from the Middle East and 3 per cent from Asia-Pacific and America.
Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are in the process of
formulating their own broad tourism plans in an effort to implement the
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development’s Sustainable Tourism Master
Plan. Rwanda, which is not a member of the Igad, is also keen to come
up with a tourism blueprint alongside the regional block’s plan.
The states have been doing this with the support of the
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) through its
Sub-Regional office for Eastern Africa. Uneca is in the process of
recruiting a substantive tourism officer to support the implementation
of the Sustainable Master Plan for the Igad Region, 2013 – 2023.
The Igad master plan will provide member states
with a regional framework for sustainable tourism development with a
view to contributing to socio-economic development, poverty alleviation
and to promoting regional integration.
Although each country was expected to domesticate
many of the Plan’s provisions, they were given leeway to come up with
plans that also fit into their own economic, social and infrastructure
contexts
“Because there is no size that fits all, the
domestication process will be context and country-specific depending on
the state of maturity of the tourism sector in the country concerned,
its endowments, state of its soft and hard infrastructure including
human resources,” said Dr Geoffrey Manyara, head of the team of experts
that co-ordinated the formulation of the tourism master plan.
Ethiopia, the development of whose national tourism
master plan is at an advanced stage, is expected to bank on its
enviable ability to keep terrorists at bay as well as a significant
cultural heritage as it develops its hospitality sector. Besides being
ranked at position 33 globally in terms of cultural and heritage
resources — which is above Egypt’s 39th position — Ethiopia is regarded
as one of the safest countries in the world.
But for far too long, Addis has not been leveraging
its comparative advantages. Consequently, it received a mere 550,000
tourists last year while Egypt has been getting a whopping nine million
international tourists each year —even with the many political crises
Cairo is facing.
But Ethiopia is finally shedding its passive approach to tourism development.
Dr Manyara said that, to capitalise on its
comparative advantages, the country has launched the National Tourism
Transformation Council that is chaired by Prime Minister, Hailemariam
Desalegn, as well as the Ethiopian Tourism Organisation which is now
charged with the development and marketing of the country’s tourism
products.
In addition, Addis has identified, in two of its growth and transformation plans, tourism as a key growth sector.
The implementation of the 10-year master plan by
individual Igad members is the continuation of a process that began in
2010 when Uneca commissioned a study on the sector in East Africa. Among
the study’s conclusions were the need for a regional brand identity and
the creation of a unified approach to tourism development within Igad.
Further, member states were urged to develop their
respective tourism master plans and align them to the broader regional
framework.
The regional plan was officially launched by
President Uhuru Kenyatta last December during the Igad Tourism
Inter-Ministerial Forum held in Nairobi. During the occasion, Uhuru said
that Africa’s share of the global tourism industry stood at 52.4
million or 5.1 per cent of international arrivals, which translated to
$33.6 billion or 3.1 per cent of international tourism revenue.
Intra-regional tourism
The drafting of the plans comes at a time when
tourism in East Africa has taken a severe thrashing following heightened
terrorist activity in the region. Compounding this has been a
reluctance by national marketing agencies to acknowledge changing global
trends in their marketing strategies and to develop alternative
investment and diversification options.
Until very recently, when Kenya began to champion a more
robust regional economic diplomacy, bodies such as the Kenya Tourist
Board (KTB) continued to give intra-regional tourism a wide berth even
though it constitutes the biggest market for various destinations.
Indeed, regional tourism far outweighs the European
or the American tourism market. This is authenticated by data from the
UN World Tourism Organisation which demonstrates that African tourists
form the largest segment of the tourists arriving on in the continent.
For instance, in 2009, regional visitors accounted
for 46 per cent of tourist arrivals on Africa, compared with 31 per cent
from Europe, 4 per cent from the Middle East, 3 per cent from
Asia-Pacific and America.
“Despite the changing trends in domestic, regional
and global markets, there is still a tendency, not just within the Igad
region, but (in) Africa as a whole, to concentrate marketing efforts and
resources in the traditional Western European market” says the
Sustainable Tourism Master Plan.
To Dr Manyara, this scenario is partly due to
foreign domination in many aspects of the sector with the exception of
the hotel sub-sector, where such domination has diminished
significantly.
Still, Igad member countries have not been
organising regional tourism fairs like the World Travel Market conducted
in Britain. Dr Manyara attributes this to the colonial legacy.
Nevertheless, some regional marketing bodies are organising fairs such
as Indaba in South Africa. KTB is also said to be planning a tourism
fair in Kenya.
It is expected that Igad members will attempt to
capitalise on the expanded, but ignored regional market. But how well
they fare in this regard, may depend on how far they develop what the
Igad master plan calls “appropriate products.” This will aid in tapping
into not just the emerging Asia-Pacific market, but more importantly,
the African regional tourist market.
This recommendation is in line with emerging
hospitality trends that show that Europe as a source market for tourists
is declining in importance.
Indeed, data posted in the master plan shows us
that in future, the Chinese market will constitute a large share of the
global source market and that although for now the share of the African
and Middle East market is relatively small, they are considered the
fastest growing markets at 6.2% and 9.9%, respectively.
Nature-based tourism
Tourism experts say that global trends suggest that
80% of the international tourists travel within their regions while the
top global destinations are driven by strong domestic tourism demand.
“This is a growing trend in Africa and the challenge for the Igad region
is to develop appropriate products to tap into the respective domestic
and regional tourist markets.”
As they come up with their own plans, it would be
interesting to see how the Igad member countries adhere to the caution
raised in the bloc’s blueprint against over-reliance on nature-based
tourism. Among the alternative tourism products suggested in the
regional plan are health tourism and gastro-tourism.
They also include tourism based on cultural
resources, the region’s heritage, and more importantly contemporary
culture or urban tourism — sports tourism, entertainment — or those
products that would make a Kenyan tourist want to visit Ethiopia.
“The idea really is to shift from the traditional
approach to tourism development in Africa where the focus is on
nature-based tourism targeting mainly Western clientele, to one that is
innovative and people-centred,” said Dr Manyara.
However, this recommendation flies in the face of critics who say that the new tourism products suggested by those who formulated the Igad Master Plan — particularly health tourism and gastro-tourism — are somewhat ‘alien’ to the region but that their full development would require raising the level of IGAD’s economic and social development to a level that which may not have been attained by 2023.
However, this recommendation flies in the face of critics who say that the new tourism products suggested by those who formulated the Igad Master Plan — particularly health tourism and gastro-tourism — are somewhat ‘alien’ to the region but that their full development would require raising the level of IGAD’s economic and social development to a level that which may not have been attained by 2023.
“I think there is a misconception here that these are
‘alien’; if you look at Kenya for instance, we are benefiting from what
you could call Ugandan health tourists.” Dr Manyara said, adding, “only
problem is that the critics do not consider these as potential products
because we have not yet packaged them well.”
But whether the regional plan or the individual
member countries’ plans will succeed in bringing about significant
development in the sector largely depends on how member countries create
a safe and secure environment for visitors.
The Igad region is reputed to be one of the highest
risk regions in the world. Indeed, the Political Instability Index of
the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks member countries as mainly high
risk with the exception of Ethiopia which is considered to be of
moderate risk.
Although the index is a mere perception of
insecurity, the team that drafted the Master Plan say that the region
has in actual fact been afflicted by various conflicts over natural
resources while the proliferation of small arms and light weapons has
also turned the region into one with the highest stockpiles of arms
globally.
“Owing to the prevailing situation of instability
in Somalia and the rise of piracy in the Indian Ocean, the once thriving
cruise tourism has almost totally collapsed,” said Dr Manyara.
In as much as safety is concerned, Igad is doing
equally badly. For instance, the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness
Index that takes into account four parameters — business costs of
terrorism; reliability of police services; business costs of crime and
violence; and road traffic accidents — to rank countries, places
Ethiopia at position 102; Uganda at 117 and Kenya among the bottom
countries globally at position 139.
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