Returned artifacts from European museums could improve Africa tourism

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Museums are an important tourist attraction and in 2021, the top 100 museums globally witnessed a total of 71m visitors in spite of the pandemic and continuous lockdown constraints.

In June, the Smithsonian in the US prepared to return 29 Benin bronzes held in its National Museum of African Art collection. In the month of July, Germany inked a contract with Nigeria to cover more than 1000 objects in its museums. In August, the UK’s Horniman Museum declared that it would return 72 artifacts.

Nigeria’s Legacy Restoration Trust has played a pivotal role in this procedure by providing a politically neutral entity into which bronze can be transferred. Both the Nigerian government and Benin’s royal family fruitlessly claimed them in the past. It could offer an outline for Nigeria and other African countries keen to retrieve both their history and the assurances that they made with tourism dollars.

The Musée du Louvre in Paris once again grabbed the top spot among the most-visited museums. It attracted 2.8m visitors in 2021. However, it is still a smaller amount compared to the pre-pandemic levels. While the complete range of economic profits for the travel and tourism industries is tough to identify, it is expected that the French travel and tourism market will reach $16.55bn this year. Nigeria’s travel and tourism industry, witnessing substantial damages from the pandemic but coped to keep the domestic tourism buoyant, could utilize such a boost.

« Back to Page

• ILTM Africa 2024 serves as an ideal trade platform for Africa travel industry

• Amani Resorts revolutionizes luxury travel with crowdfunding campaign

• African travel industry leaders to unite at WTM Africa 2024 this April

• Safari tourism market in Africa records a leap from US$ 18,014.3 million in revenue

• UNWTO workshop on Media and Tourism training in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe