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  The travails of tourism development in Africa : constraints and potentials

Franklin ADEJUWON - Minister of Agriculture and National Parks, Lagos, Nigeria

 

Africa is a vast continent "stranding" the equator and extending almost five thousand miles from the South of the Tropic of Cancer to South of the Tropic of Capricorn. It is a continent with variety of tourism potentials and most of which are yet untapped.

The continent is characterized by its rapid political and social changes dating from about the mid 20th century hitherto. A continent with vast great variety of potentials and contrast in land, climate, culture, peoples and languages has indeed been identified as the initial home of mankind. In spite of this initial reality, Africa remained a "dark" continent to the Western world until 20th century.

Africa was subjected to colonial rule from the 17th century to the 20th century when the Belgians, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans and Great Britain shared Africa into their various colonies. The second half of 20th century saw the emancipation of Africa when virtually all-African countries freed themselves from colonial rule - starting from Libya in 1956 through Ghana in 1957 to Nigeria in 1960 and later South Africa.

The travails of Tourism Development in Africa, constraints and potentials which is the subject matter of this paper will examine the numerous handicaps inhibiting tourism development in the continent in spite of its vast tourism potentials as well as the likely future of tourism.

THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION

Winston Churchill once said "The great struggles in history have been won by superior will-power wrestling victory in the teeth of odds or upon the narrowest margins," which if literally translated, serves as a line for a fulfillment of a goal in Africa within concerted efforts regardless of the odds that may stand as momentary impediments.

The struggle for recognition in the World Tourism market by various African countries dated as far back as the early sixties when inspired by the efforts of International Union of Travel Officials (I.U.T.O.) - now World Tourism Organisation (W.T.O), many African governments particularly, those who have gained their colonial independence commenced tourism campaign in various forms.

Some of these countries such as those in East African were lucky to have inherited some basic tourism infrastructure from their colonial masters. For such countries, tourism was more or less a passive venture in the sense that major tourism infrastructures, material technical bases, management and indeed tourist flow were controlled by the foreigners and from tourist generating points. This orientation automatically kept the nationals or natives out of tourism practise rather, they provided the labour services only. In other words neither the natives were inclined to tourism practice nor were the African Countries making enough direct economic gains from tourism.

In other countries particularly, along West African Coast where they were less privileged to have inherited some form of tourism development from colonial influence they were basically disoriented as to what to do; hence most of these countries had no policy on Tourism. In principle, a lot of these countries saw the potentials of tourism to the development of their economy and physical development as secondary. They had quite more to contend with choice of priority as to national development plans and strategies within their limited financial resources.

Invariably, up to the early eighties, tourism development in most African countries were lukewarm, the main tourism oriented countries in Africa up to 1979 were Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Togo.

These countries accounted for the share of Africa in the world - tourist total arrivals and receipts in 1970/79 which was put at 2.7 millions and 1.40 thousand million U.S. dollars respectively. Suffice to state that other countries such as Ivory Coast, Lesotho. Madagascar now (Malagasy), Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sieraleone, United Republic Cameroon now North and South of Cameroon commenced their respective campaigns with the assistance of foreign airlines and tour operators. Nigeria was not left out in the early campaigns which indeed commenced after its civil war, Nigeria made -some attempts to entering into the World Tourism Market through the promotion of Cultural Tourism precisely, the Black Art festival of 1977. But again the country failed because of political instability which hindered the continuation of good tourism beginning and policy.

PROGRESS IN SIGHT

The World Tourism Organisation recent reports on trends of tourism growth in the world points to some potential progress in Africa which resulted to 4 % and 2.2 % of World Tourist Arrivals and receipts respectively in 1998. Although these reports are not enough to place Africa in the World Tourism Competitive Market, there are indications of rising awareness and effort being made by the African Countries.

Prominent among such countries are the traditional tourist destinations such as Tunisia, Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

CONSTRAINTS OF TOURISM GROWTH

"The main impetus for the development of a regional dimension to tourism was the identification of regional economic development needs coupled with a recognition that tourism could assist regional development" David Airy and Richard Butler. For the African Region, the acceptance of tourism must not only be dynamic but must be ready to compete with other sectors of need such as Education, Agriculture, Healthcare and basic infrastructures such as road, portable water and electricity which are indeed today great problems to most African countries.

Besides, the African Economy has been a dependent economy "per excellence" in the sense that African Countries hitherto except South Africa, depend solely on the import and export values of all the products of the industrialized world, as well as dependent on foreign technology. In the political sphere, Africa has not been able to establish its own customized political principles, practices and goals.

The first question therefore arises, in which ways can tourism be developed in Africa to make it competitive with other relevant sectors of the economy and to what intensity is Africa capable of developing tourism to rival traditional destinations of Europe and Americas in the years to come ?

There are indeed more fundamental reasons, which are a reflection of inherent constraints to the growth of tourism in Africa. As previously stated in this paper tourism is a foreign phenomenon to an average African. Unlike in Europe or Americas where tourist flow is based on reciprocal basis between tourist generating and tourist receiving countries and where both intra and inter State/Regional tourist movements compliment each other, this phenomenon is deficient in Africa. Consequently, while tourism development in the advanced countries is geared towards deriving optimum benefits from it, that of Africa to a considerable extent has been "geared more to external non- African tourists with all that such external dependence connotes rather than to promoting a self-reliant African tourist industry". Prof. A. Adedeji. Banjul 1978. This is a fundamental issue which requires deliberate inter governmental policy approach. Besides, the income per capita of the people generally reflects their standard of living.

Where the income per capita is below average, it will be entirely futile to encourage tourism.

It is an acclaimed fact in tourism that safety and security of lives are ardent to successful tourism campaign but safety and security can only thrive where there is peace and political stability. Although the World Tourism Organisation informed us of a rapid development of tourism in Africa in recent years, such trend is only traceable to areas of political and social stability.

Uninterrupted continuation of this trend in the continent shall bring about the desired international understanding and effective economic relations capable of influencing the continent's tourism development particularly intra-regional tourism.

By and large, although, some school of thoughts have envisaged that the main thrust of tourism trend in the next millenium might hinge on the discovery of new destinations which have unique and untapped tourism potentials as Africa, this opinion may be far fetched for sometime to come. While Africa may be a focus, sustainability efforts coupled with technological progress, adaptation to sequences likely to be more tourism inspiring and indeed injection of excellent quality into tourism campaign in the existing traditional destinations are likely to sustain the present trend rather than tilt it. More than anything else it is an underscore today to state that in spite of all its potentials, Africa is under-priviledged to satisfy " all legitimate service requirements and expectations of the client such as safety, security, hygiene, accessibility and harmony with human and natural environment". While summing up Africa constraints.

TOURISM AND ENVIRONMENT IN AFRICA

Africa is the world's second largest continent. With its area of 11,671,000 square miles, it is three and half times as large as the United States of America. Africa is characterized by six vegetational belts viz : Temperate Forests, Tropical Forest, Equatorial Rain Forest, Grassland, Savanna and Hot Deserts. Of geographical significance are the Sahara desert in the North, Namib and Kalahari in the South both of which cover two-fifth's of Africa.

Along West Africa and West Central Africa where heavy rains are predominant, is the major thickest and luxuriant forest of the world where trees grow so close together that their leaves blot out the sun.

Today, there are quite a number of countries in Africa undergoing political strife and social discomfort such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Niger Republic and many, many others; while some others are resting on an uneasy peace. The result and backlash of these positions are discouragement of foreign investment, and retardness of international tourist flow. Until such countries are free from the shackles of political instability, place their focus on civilized rules of democratic setting, develop new images and establish a healthy economy, tourism development may continue to remain more of a dream than of reality.

Another constraint is Intra-Regional Accessibility. Hitherto, Africa remains backward in all regions of the world with very poor road, air, rail and sea links. Compared to the infrastructures and transportation operations in other continents, Inter-state accessibility in Africa is virtually non-existent. For example, accessibility to a North African country from Nigeria is always via Europe. There are very limited interstate road links needless to mention rail links, which are also virtually none existent, while travelling by sea within the region is an aberration.

With the poor state of accessibility within the region, development of intra-regional tourism which could have formed the basis for mass tourists movement has become difficult if not impossible as at now.

Accessibility can further be influenced by intra-regional political understanding. Africa and particularly West Africa has witnessed quite a number of border conflicts in recent years which in a way has affected easy movement of travellers; similarly, are the internal conflicts in various countries which have resulted in war and wanton abuse of human rights. War is an avowed enemy of tourism and it could be sufficiently detrimental as to create a long-term negative effect on tourism development.

Many African countries for sometime have undergone some political strain, however, with the recent democratization trend in the continents body politic, a new era of co-existence has started emerging.

Although most part of Africa lies within the tropics, more than one third of the continent is plateau and because they are high, many parts of Africa close to Equator have very pleasant climates such as Plateau State in Nigeria, and immediate areas after Dar-es-Salam and Mombassa in East Africa where the topography climbs steeply from the sea level to the plateau with an average temperature fall of about 1º f for every 300 feet.

In the Eastern part of the continent are two prominent and continent's highest mountains: Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (19,340 feet above sea level) and Kenya (17.058 feet). Snow and Ice cover the peaks of these mountains. Throughout the Eastern Africa Plateau runs the deep African rift valley. This colossal valley stretches from Syria through the Red Sea and Eastern Africa to Mozambique. It contains many lakes which is of great significance to tourism most prominent of which is Lake Tanganyika the world's longest freshwater lake.

Africa's largest lake is Lake Victoria which lies between Tanzania and Kenya. Africa's greatest rivers are the Nile, the Congo, the Niger and the Zambesi.

From the foregoing, Africa could be classified the Green Continent with all the beauties and endowment of nature which make it distinct and unbiarz future tourism destination especially with the intermix between its fauna and flora or in a better language, the fauna complimenting the flora.

Environmental problems are however rapidly growing in Africa not as a result of intensive and extensive tourism development but basically as a result of human activities which on one hand have triggered some negative effects on the environment. Some of these activities are connected with the destruction of the rainforest either for farming or timber logging which are exported to Europe or ploughed into sawmills for other uses. Other human activities are connected with rapid growth in Urbanization, Industrialization, Road Building or other infrastructural development. It can be contended however, that in most of these activities, inadequacy of technology usage have been detrimental to the environment in so much that quite a proportion of the rainforest have been opened up to such an extent that there are only patches of such forests left in many parts of Africa - particularly, West Africa.

The consequences of this are serious environmental degradation resulting from several types of erosion such as those resulting from surface configuration (relief/slope) aids runoff, "sheet erosion and gullying" ; Intensive Chemical action resulting from the high temperature and humidity; depletion of ozone layer which has resulted in climatic changes in recent years and general pollution of the air resulting into several diseases and illness.

Other factors which inhibit Africa environment are the effect of petroleum exploration activities, dumping of toxic wastes along the coast of Africa, heavy pollution of the beaches especially in Urban areas, refuse dumping, absence of effective sewage and drainage in most urban areas and general deplorable habits of the people.

Effect of petroleum exploration particularly in Nigeria has been very devastating. While the petroleum find has been a blessing to Nigeria on one hand, it has been a disaster on all the areas the petroleum wells are found. The activities of the petroleum companies at the South South Eastern part of Nigeria now known as Niger-Delta have been very devastating, the environment in this area has systematically been destroyed with wreckless abandon. The soil have been destroyed and chemically impoverished for any good farming, the waters have been polluted and rendered useless for fishing activities which is the main livelihood of people in this area, entire environment and air rendered poisonous to human health through constant flaring of gas.

Very few of the beaches of Africa are developed for tourism purposes such as Mombassa in Kenya and the Mediterranean Coast of North Africa. The West African Coast is predominantly under-developed. As a matter of fact, most part of the beaches which could have served as the best of Atlantic beach are seriously polluted by ocean liners washing their engines off the coast. Such activities do not only affect marine life but also the good sanitary position of the beaches where the oil waste from the oceanlines finally settle. Suffice to mention the rapid encroachment of the Atlantic Ocean on its shores especially in Lagos in Nigeria.

The present destinations are said to be already saturated, over developed and over exploited; most of these destinations too have become repetition to many tourists who are in need of new adventures.

These will want to explore fresh and new destinations with unique tourism products.

Africa presents this uniqueness and unrivaled qualities in terms of history, very rich and vast culture, various flora, fauna, climate and morphological structures.

Commencing from its northern borders along the Mediterranean Ocean, Africa presents a climatic setting and oceanfront conducive to European tourists; hence, most of the North African Countries have become potential European tourist destinations. Egypt with her monumental pyramids, temples of Egyptian Pharaohs together with numerous hieroglyphic records have furnished quite a lot of attractive history and culture of the Egyptians to the admiration and curiosity of tourists.

Although some of the countries of North Africa are already popular destinations, the quantum of arrivals are grossly inadequate and destinations underpatronized by tourists. Political uncertainty and terrorism still pose some threats to tourist movement in this area particularly in Egypt, and as soon as all these problems are cleared, the Northern part of Africa may emerge as the world strongest destination for tourists interested in historical monuments and beach holidays.

Unlike Italy which is often visited for its historical relics, Egypt possesses something unique and different capable of challenging some of the present destinations which are famous for historical relics in the new millenium.

The West African sub-region has been a predominant slave trade area, a trend that has today become a historical factor in which United Nations through its agency - UNESCO has been very interested in developing and promoting. Some of the prominent centres being developed at the moment are in Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Sanitation level in most of urban cities in Africa, particularly along West Africa Coast need to be improved upon. Constant refuse dumping which form huge mountains within some metropolis and general absence of conveniences indulge the people in bad habits which result in the pollution of the environment. However, many countries in Africa have evolved very concerted efforts and deliberate policies to checking some of these problems. Ghana for example could be marked as an example where discipline combined with strong enforcement of law has yielded positive result in environmental cleaningless and control.

The question now is that what role can tourism play in revamping environmental degradation in Africa? In the first instance, "tourism is a nation builder" in that it encourages physical development of where tourism product is available particularly in the rural areas, it also encourages cleaningless of the environment. In the second instance, to encourage a visitor's visit, all the conveniences that go with such visits must be made available and thirdly, for Africa to be in a strong position to compete in the international tourism market, it must provide quality environment with all its attendant facilities.

While summing up Africa constraints to tourism development as economic, political, social and environmental, the stiff competition posed by the advanced countries hitherto in the sphere of dexterity in tourism development, presentation and marketing strategies could be main challenges to Africa becoming the destination of the new millenium except Africa is ready to face the realities of international norms engendered in the total tourism quality standards which should simultaneously take into consideration "the authenticity of a destination".

QUALIFYING AFRICA AS THE TOURIST DESTINATION OF THE NEW MILLENIUM

Africa has been christained to be the destination of the new milleniumby experts who believe in possible radical changes in the taste oftourists.

Africa ecological advantages over other continents may not be the determining factor for a serious revolution in African tourism development in the next millenium, but it could serve as a contributory factor towards achieving that on the longrun. However, were is a grewing menace of environmental problems which may take precedent in combating rather than focusing on tourism development in the time being such as soil erosion which is fast causing decline of agricultural production, escalating the cost of infrastructure. Soil erosion entails the steady destruction of a community's land resources and improverished the soils for food production while most of the eroded soils lead to pollution and siltation of rivers, dams and water reservoirs which are presently fast drying up. Ofcourse, the aquatic life is virtually paralized. Although, many countries in Africa may have to contend with the political problems triggered by social disequilibrium already triggered by these ecological problems rather than focusing their limited resources on tourism development. Furthermore, unless there is world balance in the protection of the environment whereby some areas of the world especially is no longer used as a dumping ground by the by the developed countries, such efforts being made by the WorldBank and International Organizations may not achieve desired positive results in Africa.

The morphological structure of the continent starting from the coastal areas to the mountains of Kenya, Kilimanjaro and Victoria falls present geo-physical attractions which to a minimum extent support international tourism growth in some areas of Africa; however, these unique features particularly the coast along West Africa could be a focus for seaside tourism in no distant future subject to adequate development and political stability in the region.

Genuine cultural identity is a major endowment of Africa and may remain unrivaled because of its diverse nature and very much unadulterated. This is an area where Africa excels and can comfortably be built up to support equilibrium in the World Tourism Market in the new millenium.

This type of uniqueness coupled with the very rich culture, festivals and good climatic conditions easily register some of the West African countries as future destination for mass tourism, however, not without consideration for basic infrastructures in place, peace, security and political stability.

There is no doubt that Africa - South of Sahara and particularly South Africa has become prominent in the World Tourism Market after its independence. Similarly are the East African Countries which have for sometime been the main Africa tourist destination popular for Safari Tourism. With the opening up of South Africa, tourism in the entire region is likely to intensify in the new millenium.

Ecology, otherwise, fauna and flora could be regarded as one of the main strengths for tourism growth in Africa. Africa possesses different vegetational belts ranging from mangrove forest, through the thick jungle forest to the desert. Although the vegetation setting may not be very much akin to major tourism development other than Eco tourism, this setting supports extensive and intensive development of safari tourism as a result of the variety of wildlife. There is however need to develop Eco system policy for Africa to salvage the rapid degradation of vegetation particularly, the rain forest which is fast in ruins as well as the constant poaching of wildlife. "East Africa is the origin of safari and safari tourism". The normal safari expedition used to have its glamour and it used to go in a grand style with trackers, skinners, drivers, cooks, waiters, hot baths and iced drinks. The hunting vehicles were always well equipped with double sleeping tents, flyproof dining tents, toilet tents, and shower tents e.t.c. While, main hunting was done on license and number of games to be killed were limited. Although Safari Tourism has made the East Africa very popular for tourism, the economic gains from this flourishing venture have been more outside the tourist receiving countries that adding to their G.D.P. It is therefore not sufficient for either the World Tourism Organization or World Bank to assume a position of tourism importance for Africa but to actually seek to find solutions as to how the African Countries can benefit directly from the development of tourism.

The African Culture from the wonderful sculptural works, the naturalistic bronze heads, terracotta sculptures, Ashanti gold weights of brass, different wood carvings, African various styles of music, dresses, festivals, food menu, and many, many more present Africa for curiosity and this curiosity is an important product Africa may exploit in the years to come.

Concluding, development of tourism is intricate and very capital consuming but Africa with all its attendant problems, will it be in a position to collectively focus on intensive tourism development ? African countries are endowed with unique features which are capable of producing new flavours and interests to international tourism market.

But Africa requires peace, political stability, and improved standard of living of its peoples before its tourism industry can be developed to a maximum strength.

Africa is the tourist focus of the new millenium as declared by World Tourism Organisation(W.T.O) General Assembly in Santiago in September 1999 but only its uniqueness can provide answer to this declaration on the longrun.

 

REFERENCES.

Adedeji .A. Professor - African Regional Conference on tourism and Economy Development Banjul 1978.

Anne Nason - An introduction to the Birds in Nigeria 1992.

Edward Inskeep - Tourism Planning an Integrated and Sustainable Development approach.

Joan Davidson & Gerald Wibbley - Planning and Rural development.

Jean Philipe Platteau - The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as Applied to Sub-Sahara Africa vol. 27 N .I Jan 1996.

Ofonta . G.E.C - Social Erosion Characreristics in the forest Zone of South Eastern Nigeria 1987.

Klans Weiermar - On the concept and definition of quality in Tourism. AIEST 47th Congress 1997.

Stephen Ellis - Africa After the Cold War; New Patterns of Government and Politics. Development and Change. Vol. 27 Number 1 Jan. 1996.

W.T.O News Journal - Feb-March 1999 Edition and April-May 1999 Edition.