Tourism: Expert laments Nigeria, others’ poor standing

With the travel industry contributing just under 10 per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing 300 million workers globally, the opportunities for Africa are immense.

This is the view of President of Skal International, Lavonne Wittman, visited Nigeria last week as the first ever President of Association of Travel Professional, an organisation of tourism leaders around the world, promoting global tourism and friendship.

Wittman, who was also in the country to inaugurate the Port-Harcourt branch of the group, tasked stakeholders in tourism sector in Nigeria and other African countries to partner within and beyond the continent, lamenting that the continent lagged behind in global travel development.

The industry in Africa still lags behind. Notwithstanding the good weather year-round and good tourism sites, only Morocco welcomes as much as 11 million tourists in a year.

By 2030, consumer spending on tourism, hospitality, and recreation in Africa is projected to reach about $261.77 billion, $137.87 billion more than in 2015.

From 1998 to 2015, service exports, including that of “industries without smokestacks” such as tourism, have grown about six times faster than merchandise exports in Africa.

Given these trends, the travel and tourism industry have significant potential in Africa, notably due to the continent’s richness in natural resources and its potential to further develop cultural heritage, music and others.

However, except in a few countries, such as Mauritius and Seychelles, where the tourism sector’s share of the economy is particularly large, tourism in Africa is still at an early stage of development and strongly connected with more general and longstanding development challenges, including infrastructure and security.

She disclosed that there were so many things members of the association could do internationally to bring positive change to the way travel business is done, stressing that they need to get more powerful to bring more benefits to the industry.

Her words: “We are working on that. We need to get more powerful. We have got to have more attractive membership benefit. We have got to see that our SKAL is running correctly and ultimately and holistically attractive. What we are also trying to say is to value business. We have network organisation or South Africa business network and they measure businesses. We come together and say you have given me a $100, 000 businesses and then measure it. It is very difficult to measure at this stage. It is a powerful organization.”

Wittman, the first female and first African President of Skal International, said tourism, more like a big organisation, deals with diverse cultures, languages, and different business ethics across the board, though detests working in silos.

“We (in Africa) really need to be powerful within ourselves before we can market the African continent. We need people to work together and be constant in how they sell Africa. Because most times in Africa, we are just working for ourselves without realising that others can help us do this or that,” she added.

Wole Shadare