First Unified Tourism Voice for Africa Faces Challenges
Photo Credit: A harbor in the Western Cape province of South Africa is pictured. A new pan-African tourism initiative is trying to grow the number of tourists to the continent. Flickr / Marc Cooper
Skift Take
Is the formation of a pan-African tourism body the solution to boosting the continent’s tourism numbers? With industry players slow to sign up, the new African Tourism Board initiative from the International Coalition of Tourism Partners has its work cut out for it.
Africa recorded just 62 million international arrivals in 2017, an 8 percent increase from the year before. But that was still less than one-tenth of Europe’s 672 million visitors last year, according to the World Tourism Organization,
While there’s good marketing work being done to grow that figure, particularly by the private sector, the launch of the African Tourism Board later this year by the International Coalition of Tourism Partners (ICTP) aims to create a unified voice for marketing the continent abroad. And, ultimately, drive up visitor numbers.
“We want to bring the various established players in the industry together, and to help them work together,” explained Juergen Steinmetz, chairman of the ICTP. "In Africa you have a lot of organizations doing good work, but there’s no
