Africa seeks to develop its tourism potential

Foto cortesía: Dino De Luca

Africa is a powerhouse of natural resources, always tied  to the exotic and  the adventure.
Certainly it has a huge potential for tourism development, and in this area there is much to be done.

2014 proved to be a stronger for international tourism ; according to Africa Tourism Data Portal, Africa received 65.3 million arrivals, representing 5.8% of total international arrivals in 2014.
Despite the Ebola crisis in 2014, tourist arrivals to Africa grew positively, increasing 200,000 more than the previous year.

Morocco, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe are the top 5 most popular African destinations.
The travel industry and tourism is directly responsible for generating 105.4 million jobs, equivalent to 3.6% of total employment in the world.
Of this amount, tourism generates 8.7 MM Africa jobs. Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa have the largest number of direct and indirect jobs in the tourism industry.

However, despite the positive developments in recent years, the continent still faces a number of obstacles and impediments to development in the field of tourism.

Below we list in affecting the continent:

1. Infrastructure and transport services: it is one of the major constraints affecting the effectiveness in the tourism industry; which are the pillars of access to a destination of tourists.Equally, it is a challenge air travel to and within the continent; because they are strict and very limited, as they are designed to protect the share of power of state-owned airlines.
2. Education: is affected by the limited mechanisms and tools in order to train and educate in tourism sector.
3. Security: Applies to tourism security when traveling from one point to another, conflict and criminal activities and security regarding exposure to diseases.
4. Perception: the perception of fate general level influences the decision to visit. Africa has a negative image link due to political and cultural conflicts faced for decades.

Definitely, for Africa in order to grow steadily, so it can make great strides to welcome the world tourism and include this category as support economic growth; it should develop the foundations on which tourism is based.