African countries are welcoming more tourists than ever before as tourism contributes 8.5% to the continent's GDP

Over the period the patronage of tourism on the African continent has been unimaginably impressive despite the various setbacks in the region such as Ebola.

The overwhelming patronage can be attributed to intra-movement with the continent. Annually, tourism growth is estimated at 6% while tourism revenues soared 9% per year.

Tourism export revenues rose from $14 billion to $47 billion over the period. This brought tourism’s contribution to Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 8.5%, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Economic Development in Africa Report 2017 report.

A new report by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows that the total number of international tourist arrivals to Africa more than doubled between 1995 and 2014 as international tourist arrivals to Africa reached 56 million in 2014.

Between 2011-2014, tourism in Africa was concentrated at the northern side; Egypt (9.9 million), Morocco (9.8 million), South Africa (9.2 million) and Tunisia (6.8 million) recorded the highest average numbers of international tourist arrivals between 2011 and 2014.

Those four countries alone accounted for more than 60% of all international tourist arrivals to Africa between 2011 and 2014.

Despite massive setbacks like the Arab Spring of 2010, the last two decades have seen an impressive hike in tourism export revenues to about thrice of the figures in previous years. Averagely the revenue per international tourist increased from $580 in 1995–1998 to $850 in 2011–2014 totalling a tune of $47 billion in 2014.

Southern Africa won a reputation as having a “more upmarket” tourism industry earning the most tourism export revenue per tourist arrival.

Northern Africa, however, received the largest share of tourism export revenues between 2011 and 2014.

Also, the percentage of Africans amongst the number of tourist arrivals has seen an appreciable rise. Out of every 10 international tourists, there are now four Africans.

Although promising, Africans would have to do a lot more catch up to the global average. This would only be possible if African governments direct tourism policies to capture a target group and ease access to visas.

African countries are welcoming more tourists than ever before as tourism contributes 8.5% to the continent's GDP

Over the period the patronage of tourism on the African continent has been unimaginably impressive despite the various setbacks in the region such as Ebola.

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