Sisa Ntshona Calls For Collaboration To Boost African Tourism

The CEO of South African Tourism has called for a collaborative effort between African countries to increase the continent’s market share when it comes to tourism globally.

Sisa Ntshona, who was on a working visit to Ghana, noted that the continent currently controls only 5% of the world’s tourism market, something he believes can change if all countries work together.

He advised that Africans should use the narrative that Africa is a country, to its advantage to combine and win together.

Mr Ntshona made the call during an interview with Myjoyonline.com during a Tourism and Travel Stakeholders' Dinner at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

According to him, “the world looks at Africa as a country; If the world looks at Africa as a country, use it to your advantage to the extent that before anyone of us in our 54 countries wins, you’ve got to convince people to come to the continent.”

He asked: “How do we sell Africa, how do we combine,” to increase Africa’s 5% tourism share".

“There is so much we can do on that side but we can only do it if we actually collaborate and combine and we do it in different ways.

“We don’t need to have 54 countries that look the same; we want 54 different experiences, different languages, different cultures, different foods…,” the South African Tourism CEO added.

With this target, Mr Ntshona noted that “the difficulty is getting everything off the ground because as a continent, we have different levels of advancement.

"Some are more advanced than others…how do we make sure that we all play ball at the same time but we just combine hands with those that see tourism as a driver at the moment.”

South Africa is one of the most visited tourist countries in Africa. In 2017, the number of tourists in South Africa was 16 million. This figure is forecast to reach 19.5 million by 2022.

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