Reboot of Tourism to Pre-Covid Standard is Highly Unsure

Monday, January 17, 2022

In 2022, the prospects for tourism in some African countries could start showing the signs of improvement this year. “…although a return to pre-pandemic levels of business activity looks highly unlikely across all of Africa’s tourism hotspots,” the report shared January 12, 2022 said.

Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, and Morocco – the countries whose initiation to reboot tourism may not get the sectors back to their feet.

The report values the tourism market of Kenya at Sh113 billion ($1 billion) as of 2019. It says that governments in few selected countries in Africa are investing a lot to improve the prospects for their tourism industries with an intention to protect a partial rebound in 2022 and a much stronger recovery in 2023.

“The immediate future for travel and tourism will rely heavily on the success of vaccination programmes and economic recoveries in Africa’s major tourism markets in Europe and Asia,” it reads.

The report pinpoints leisure travel as travel’s sub-sector that would recuperate faster compared to business travel as the latter has online network to fall back as an alternative, hence decreasing the desire for non-essential international travel.

Information from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics mentions the arrivals through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Moi International Airport hit 525,728 visitors by October 2021, compared to 356,508 in the previous year.

The report predicts consecutive infection waves receding across the continent with risks in public health crises elevated by low vaccine rollout across the continent. “By mid-December 2021, only a handful of African States had fully or partially vaccinated more than 40 per cent of their populations,” the report notes.

« Back to Page