Hospitality sector is undergoing a transformation in African countries. One may qualify the statement by mentioning that such positive changes are evident only in a few countries and most of the 54 countries in the continent are outside the purview of the sweeping changes that are happening. It is true to a great extent since the high end hotels and tourist centers are coming up only in some countries, where level of development is relatively high or are endowed with natural settings that can attract the tourists and investors in the hospitality sector.
There is also a flip side to the tourism development in the continent and that is multitudes of hotels, which are springing up in the African continent- from high-end business hotels to sprawling leisure resorts close to the scintillating sites near canyons or waterfalls -are built and owned by the foreign investors or hotel chains. Does it provide adequate sustainable and round the season jobs to the local people? It is a common sight that hotels and resorts are employing foreign nationals as hotels’ regular employees leaving only manual jobs for the locals.
Why hoteliers are turning toward Africa and similar regions in Asia and Latin America? There is hardly any room for hotel chains to proliferate in the saturated market for hospitality in the developed countries. For expansions, they have to look for new pastures beyond the developed world. Africa comes handy for them because of the upward moving middle class, increasing number of tourists, huge land mass and large number of picturesque places that can be developed as future tourist spots. Once the travel links are developed and more facilities come up in the region, which is likely sooner or later, there will be a boom in tourist arrivals. The attractive Safari trails, rare animals and birds, presence of ecologically sensitive areas etc will be added brownie points to the tourism industry in the continent.
One thing that Africa has to learn from its past experience is that tourism should not be another mining industry that has kept and continue to keep the region at the mercy of the foreign investors. Despite the high decibel rhetoric that Africa should have a strong processing backbone to tap the mineral wealth, nothing much has happened on the ground. Africa, still, continues to be a mineral resource hub and processing, where money and employment lie, are done outside the region.
How Africa can reverse this trend in hospitality and tourism? First and foremost is the professionalization of the sector. That involves many things, such as creating professionals who can man hotels and resorts in Africa at all levels including managers, menu directors, guides etc. Motivating indigenous industrialists and businessmen to invest in hotel sector like properties and other related infrastructure, which can be either managed by them or farmed out to foreign chains for operations like the case in most of the countries, where hotels are run on franchise basis. Mapping the need for digitally linking hotels, resorts and tourist spots since the visiting tourists are very keen to have internet connections wherever they travel is also important. Also, it is necessary to have easy and swift transport facilities including good drivers and smart tourist guides, who are proficient in foreign languages and basic etiquettes. It is also important to create attractive tourist trails including ethnic cultural programs, facilities for tasting good and hygienic local foods and brews ince some of the high end tourists are keen to have such rare experiences in the natural settings. Last but not the least is the high level of law and order situation that is basic to tourism sector.
