NBA’s Big Africa Push Could Be a Catalyst for a New Tourism Future

In 2019, Africa was deemed the second fastest growing tourism region in the world. Travel contributed $194 billion to the continent’s gross domestic product, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria had made the largest tourism contributions to GDP, and Tunisia and Rwanda showed over 10 percent growth, ranking among the top ten fastest growing tourism destinations.

And then, Covid. There’s been no shortage of challenges for the African continent since, from the decimation of tourism jobs — 51 percent lost by August 2020 — to conversation areas under threat due to loss of tourism revenue, internal civil strife and the Delta variant soaring as a result of vaccine inequity.

But a significant development has emerged out of the continent this year that could push Africa’s tourism industry back onto its pre-Covid growth trajectory faster than anticipated, while catapulting it into an innovative future. The game changer is the U.S. National Basketball Association’s (NBA) launch of its first professional basketball league to operate outside of North America: the Basketball Africa League (BAL), under NBA Africa as a legal entity overseeing the NBA's operations on the continent.

Sports, along with deeper culture and more urban tourism, serve to offer closer-to-reality experiences for Africa to market beyond tried-and-true narratives of safaris and adventure trips.

Valued at $1 billion and now backed by private investors such as former NBA players Dikembe Mutombo, Grant Hill, Luol Deng, and more recently, former U.S. President Barack Obama — NBA Africa is poised to be a game changer for the continent as a tourism destination.

“After about a decade of activity, the NBA reflected on what we've done in Africa, and the decision was that there was significantly more opportunity that we could tap into on the continent in terms of basketball, in terms of commercial partnerships, in terms of social and economic impact,” said Victor Williams, CEO of NBA Africa.

In July, former president Barack Obama jointed NBA Africa as a strategic partner.

The spillover effect from this long-term collaborative NBA and investor-backed venture has already opened the door to next-level tourism collaborations amid a pandemic. It’s showing the African tourism sector that its potential remains untapped.

A multiyear partnership with Rwanda’s travel industry