Southern Africa tourism growth facing challenges: regional body
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E-mail Xinhua, October 11, 2013
Poor air connectivity and infrastructure remain major challenges hampering tourism development in southern Africa, an official said on Friday.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region was endowed with magnificent tourism products including the Victoria Falls shared by Zimbabwe and Zambia, but poor infrastructure and the absence of efficient air transport were major drawbacks to growth of the sector.
Regional Tourism Organization of Southern Africa (RETOSA) marketing and communication director Kwanye Donkor told Xinhua at the ongoing Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Africa Fair that the different stages of development of each SADC member state also posed challenges in marketing the region as a competitive tourist destination.
"Some countries in the region are advanced and others are behind and this creates problems among operators in terms of giving quality service to visitors across the region," he said.
He said air connectivity in the region was also poor, with very few airlines connecting to each other.
Tourism infrastructure was different in each country and there was need for countries lagging behind to quicken their infrastructure development projects, Donkor said.
"There is need for countries in the region to enhance or expedite infrastructure development projects that are related to tourism for the region to have a fair share of the global tourism market," he said.
Africa generates about 4 percent of total tourist arrivals in the world, with SADC accounting for 50 percent of that 4 percent.
Going forward, Donkor said the regional body was working on capacitating countries in southern Africa to better account for tourism receipts and its contribution to Gross Domestic Product.
RETOSA was also looking at capacitating countries in the region to make green and sustainable tourism a priority. Endi
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