Tourism Promotion: Fix your product before anything else

Tourism & Travel is fast becoming the lifeline of many global economies. Research Reports indicate that Tourism and Travel contributed approximately $7.7 trillion to global GDP, however here comes the real problem; Tourism & Travel despite being a trillion dollar business contributed only a dismal $186 bn to Africa’s GDP in 2019, according to World Tourism & Travel Council.

Many Scholars and tourism experts have attributed this poor travel & tourism performance in Africa to limited promotion and Advertising efforts by African countries in the global source markets. This is partly true, however here lies real challenge. Africa has neglected its Tourism Product.

There can be no effective Marketing without a good Product, this means that the product is the pivot of all marketing initiatives. In Tourism Marketing we deal with an intangible product normally summed up as an Experience. However this experience is made of physical attributes that include industry specific touch points like  Tourism attraction sites, hospitality establishments like hotels, restaurants, Convention centres among others but also other general attributes of the destination like Transport Infrastructure, Finance & Banking systems, Capital city image, security, Health & safety and nature of the people cannot be underscored.

The Success of a Tourism destination will largely be associated with the attractiveness of the Tourism product and by this we mean all the above mentioned attributes that contribute to the Tourism experience within the destination.

However, In this article, we focus on only 2 of these Attributes; Tourism Attraction Sites and Accommodation

Attraction Sites & Amenities

Africa’s Tourism offering largely depends on its natural resources like the wildlife, mountains, forests , lakes , rivers and more. These natural God-given attractions are largely untapped and still lie in wait to be explored. The attractive weather patterns and climate in Africa are also an added advantage for Africa as a tourist hotspot. Especially countries that lie astride the Equator like Uganda , experience a warm equatorial climate all year round which means visitors can explore and travel through Africa all year round. The East , Central and Southern Africa is endowed with abundant wildlife in multiple game parks and reserves among others.

However Despite all these natural endowments and attractiveness, Africa still lags behind in Tourism numbers largely because very little effort has been put into modernising and refurbishing these Tourism sites to meet international visitor standards. Forinstance with all the fresh water lakes and rivers, Marine Tourism has not been fully harnessed. With exception of few countries like Egypt and South Africa that have fully taken advantage of water based tourism , the rest of the countries are yet to explore this Tourism resource to it’s full potential.

Blessed with some many Mountains and hills in Africa, we are yet to see innovations like cable cars in full use to scale up mountains like Mt. Kenya, Kilimanjaro, Rwenzori , except for the Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa .  The state of nature trails and road network within the wildlife protected areas like National parks and game reserves is still wanting. These short comings compromise the visitor experiences hence leading to negative reviews and failure to attract repeat visitors onto the African Continent.

There’s need to deliberately prioritize Tourism attraction site and product enhancement in Africa in order to see a steady growth in Tourism arrivals on the continent. No amount of aggressive  advertising and huge Tourism promotion expenditure can beat a good, functional and well looked after Tourism Product. African Tourism Boards and Tourism promotion Agencies need to commit substantial resources and budgets to enhancing their Tourism product to improve attractiveness and competitiveness of their destinations. This way Africa, can earn its substantial share of the multi-billion Tourism economy.

Accommodation

Accommodation Facilities in any Tourism destination are at the core of the Tourism experience.

Hotels and lodges consume the largest chunk of the visitor’s expenditure at a destination thus is the importance of this critical attribute. Africa still lags behind in the provision of quality accommodation facilities and this has greatly hampered Destination Marketing efforts of the continent.

A quick online survey on visitor reviews regarding , Tourist Accommodation in African countries suggests that hotel accommodation is too expensive across the continent and barely meets  expected international standards. There’s a deficit the quantity of luxury accommodation on the African continent. This is evidenced by the few international Hospitality chains that are currently present in Africa. With the exception of South Africa , Morocco ,  Kenya  & Egypt , majority of African countries have less than 5 international hotel brands in their countries. What this means is that with scanty supply of luxury accommodation , the available few are overly priced thus making Africa an expensive destination to visit and deterring potential tourists.

What Needs to be done? We need to see a deliberate move to attract more investment into the luxury hotel segment and more international hotel franchises on the African continent. The international brands have set a high standard and guest expectations in as far as the Hospitality and service industry is concerned. With such additions, coupled with home grown hospitality chains and further investments in Modern Transport infrastructure , Africa will shine and see a rapid growth in Tourism and Travel, besides being in pole position to compete against other emerging Tourism destinations in Asia and the Middle East.

By Eddy Kirya

The Author is a Leading Tourism & Hospitality Business Advisor,
CEO at Eyalama Adventures Ltd and
Outgoing Board Member at Uganda Tourism Board ( UTB)