africa
By Wandiswa Ntengento
Africa’s travel market is open and booming. This is a sentiment expressed by an estimated 600 exhibitors at this year’s World Travel Market Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. This after the industry sustained serious damage due to Covid-19.
The meeting saw a 35% increase compared to last year, said Carol Weaving, Director of Reed Exhibition Africa.
“This year we have 577 exhibitors which is a 35 per cent growth and what’s really exciting is that we are the only inbound show on the African continent and it goes to show that a lot of intra africa trade that is happening. Internationally you can see also that the Indian Ocean here, Seychelles, Reunion, Madagascar”
One of the hot topics on Africa’s growth is intra africa trade. For travel and tourism, destinations like Seychelles believes that it will act a catalyst to wider growth for expanding the country’s popularity.
“The new approach I would say which our Minister of a Tourism continues talk often about is to introduce our cultural activities in Seychelles to bring it more at the forefront. In other worlds, we have a story to tell about our food and music and us as a people,” David Germain, Seychelles Tourism Regional Director for Africa.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe a destination known for diverse attractions like Victoria Falls predicts that by 2025 their tourism sector will reach a five billion US dollar growth mark.
Jeffreys Manjengwa is the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority Executive Director International Marketing:
“Our projection under our national tourism recovery growth strategy is to reach a USD five billion tourism economy by 2025.”
The UN’s World Tourism Organization latest data shows that more than 900 million tourists travelled internationally in 2022. These businesses behind are some of the of the foot soldiers behind the promotion of the continent and driving growth to Africa’s travel and tourism market.
