African hospitality expert and top manager of one of Africa’s most popular hotel chain, Didier Bayeye have questioned the French travel advisory as issued by the popular Quai d’Orsay in Paris, France.
In his words, the episode of two French tourists kidnapped in Benin and released in Burkina Faso doubled by the polemic about which area in Africa to avoid visiting as published by the French travel advisory Quai d’Orsay, has put Africa under scrutiny.
On the one side you say; tourists avoid dangerous areas, and on the other side, tourists are more and more asking to travel to Africa. How compatible is that? Asked a journalist?
More and more travellers desire to go to Africa. But Africa is a continent and the regions they want to visit don’t match what the “Travel advisory” discourages known as “RED ZONE” by “Quai d’Orsay”
Today, travellers privilege North Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa while Quai d’Orsay ill advises the Sahel region first.
According to Bayeye, “If we talk of countries, the most affected where numbers of international tourists have dropped are; Egypt, South-Africa, Tanzania and Namibia. Those with remarkable growth these last few years are: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Algeria and Mauritania.”
For the past 5 years Africa has recorded an average of 10% increase in number of tourists year on year. Yes, Africa is one of the future tourism continent et contrary to what might be believed, it is already the first visited continent after Europe, by Americans. They love the beautiful lodges and the extraordinary landscape, while Africa offers all this and much more.
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What do travellers want in Africa? There are three main motivations in the first place; first the cultural and historical. They want to get to these lands known as the cradles of humanity, to experience the land of Nelson Mandela in South-Africa, and I’m not even mentioning the Egyptian culture that is highly on demand……..but they also want to experience these extraordinary landscapes and access a fauna and flora in it’s natural wild sense. The Africa continent allows very different trips but always extraordinary.
This is also the reason why the continent is growing fast despite the closing of the sahel.
Africa is in it’s new era. What are the new destinations of this era?
Ghardaïa is part of the African Pearls and has one of the three most beautiful medinas of the Arabic world. We are also happy that Rwanda and Nigeria listed as new destinations for international tourists. Rwanda is the leader of new destinations for 3 reasons; firstly, its exceptional gorilla habitat then the splendid landscape and finally the safety it offers. The combination of these three strong elements has caused Rwanda to claim a big share of tourists and stand very attractive.
On the other hand, a good record of international tourists has been observed asking and travelling to Lagos mainly the type of clients very cultivated and connected desiring the vibe of a megalopolis, boiling city. This is newly and promising tourists destination in Africa.
West Africa tourism? Here still lays the weakest link of the continent in terms of tourism. This region has not really taken off compare to the other part of the continent. The kind of a poor parent of the African tourism because this region has still less developed infrastructure and dilapidated road conditions that send wrong signal to the rest of the world.
