Africa’s Travel Indaba 2022 drew hundreds of buyers and exhibitors to Durban’s International Convention Centre injecting an estimated R72,5-million into KwaZulu-Natal’s economy during the three-day trade show in May, writes Lyse Comins.
Tourism South Africa lauded the event as a resounding success that attracted a total of 3 700 delegates, 655 exhibitors and 955 buyers who took part in 14 000 meetings during the week.
South African Tourism chief convention bureau officer, Amanda Kotze-Nhlapo, said the size of the event, although smaller than in 2019, had displayed the “resilience” of the sector’s people.
“Although the numbers were lower than pre-Covid-19 times, each buyer still had 10 meetings a day on average. Africa’s Travel Indaba exceeded the organisation’s expectations. Tourists can see that the province can do big conferences in a time of challenges,” Kotze-Nhlapo said.
EThekwini Municipality deputy head of tourism, Winile Mntungwa, said the city’s hotel occupancy rate hit more than 85% and the city had netted R29-million in direct spending with an estimated contribution of R72,5-million to its GDP. Mntungwa added that 145 short-term jobs were created during the period.
South African Tourism acting CEO Themba Khumalo, said of the 655 exhibitors, 126 showcased African products, representing 19 countries.
“We are a continent full of people with initiative. We have the energy and passion to revive an entire industry, such as tourism, with our own hands. Our story says to the world that we are ready to welcome them and we are open for business.
Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Sisulu described the indaba as a “springboard for the continent to achieve even greater levels of recovery”, and called for greater country collaboration to advance domestic and regional travel.
“We must remember that our continent is also our own market. Intra-continental tourism from Africa’s rapidly growing economies is an opportunity begging to be explored. We need improved collaborative efforts to achieve this,” she said.
According to UN World Trade Organisation data, some 18,5-million foreign travellers visited Africa in 2021, up from 16,2-million in 2020. Of that figure, 6,1-million made their way to North Africa and 12,3-million travelled to sub-Saharan Africa. There was also a 51% improvement in international tourist arrivals compared to the year before. However, Sisulu said the continent continued to struggle with barriers to tourism growth, including poor road infrastructure between major cities, limited airlift and stringent immigration regulations. She said there were positive developments around the roll-out of the e-visa regime for some key source markets.
African tourism business should market the continent jointly and countries need to address internal security, improve domestic tourism and air connectivity. Khumalo said the industry also needed to create innovative products.
“We have to design products for us – let the products designed for international tourists remain designed for international markets. We need to look at how we serve a domestic and African traveller.
“Africa is one brand – the world looks at Africa as individual countries, they look at Africa as one country, one brand. Let those coming from outside the continent come and then let us collaborate and compete once the business is on the continent and not before then,” Khumalo said.
Tourism Business Council CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said entrepreneurs would seize opportunities if governments created a conducive environment. “We need to make sure that the good policies we have, are put in place. For example, we have policies in SADC, East Africa and North Africa that we have put down on paper and they make sense – but no one has implemented these things. We have been talking for the past 20 years about making cross-border travel easier and about getting the airlines to fly there, but it is only now when the Germans and Gulf airlines and others are coming in that we are starting to do it,” Tshivhengwa said.