Browsing: Tourism

The South African government last week announced a resumption in international visitors to the country amid a COVID- 19 infection reality. 

Earlier this year, South Africa, like many other countries, shut itself out from the world to control the spread of COVID within its borders. It immediately implemented local lockdowns which have been gradually lifted in different phases. 

Authorities had initially indicated that international borders were billed to be opened in February 2021. The country has, however, given the green light to international visitors in order to stimulate a faltering tourism sector.

Initially, borders were opened on October 1 but excluded visitors from many countries that were classified as high risk. 

Last week, the government updated its travel restrictions alert, opening up entry to all countries.

The opening up of borders is aimed at arousing the tourism sector in South Africa which contributes significantly to GDP. It has been …

The hospitality and tourism industry

The hospitality and tourism industry in sub-Saharan Africa must adopt a new “adapt and innovate” modus operandi to meet the challenges produced by the COVID-19 pandemic if it is to help prevent further contraction of severely impacted economies in the region, says Mark Havercroft, Regional Director Africa for the International hotel group Minor Hotels.

While the opening of international borders by several African countries is extremely positive news for ailing travel and hospital sectors in sub-Saharan Africa – and for economies as a whole, this may not, in and of itself, be sufficient to resuscitate the industry in the wake of the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Not only are many of the international tourists who operators are relying on to return quickly still locked down in their own countries, but even if they’re not, there are still very high levels of insecurity around …

The elephant population in Tanzania has increased from 43,330 in 2014 to over 60,000 this year. The government attributes the increase to crackdown on poaching syndicates.

A key figure in the poaching and black market trade of ivory, was arrested denting the industry greatly. Christened, the “Ivory Queen” Yang Fenglan, a prominent Chinese businesswoman was last year sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.

However, by time of her arrest, it is estimated she alone was responsible for the smuggling numerous tones of ivory to China. Yang was tried and found guilty of operating one of Africa’s biggest ivory-smuggling rings. By the of her arrest, she is said to have been responsible for smuggling ivory worth over USD2.5m. That value is estimated to have been derived from the slaughter of almost 400 elephants.

Following her arrest, activists suffered a great lose with the murder of Roger Gower in 2016. …

When rich folks want to climb to the highest peak of Africa, they no longer have to scrimmage with the rest of us along the old narrow foot tracks, no, they now have an exclusive route cut just for Very Important People (VIP).

In an unprecedented move, the government of Tanzania has decided to construct 25-kilometre of road up Mount Kilimanjaro in a bid to provide for the needs of the World’s richest.

The features of this VIP route have not been made public but it is expected to be exclusive, private and only for select few who can afford it. Tanzania, has some of the World’s must see tourist attractions that attract some of the World’s elite.

Arguably, a Prince so and so along with CEOs of multibillion dollar companies as well a Hollywood famous faces, would like to visit these attractions without attracting too much attention.

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Tanzania relays heavily on the tourism sector for its foreign exchange earnings and to save this vital sector, the country has announced plans to have all hotels and other tourist facilities across the country bear Covid-19 certificates that basically declare the facility a Covid-19 free area.

According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) the tourism sector is Tanzania’s top foreign exchange earner clocking USD 2.44 billion last year.  It only makes sense that the country would do all in its power to save the sector in the wake of the pandemic.

The move, to have tourism facilities display Covid-19 free zone poster is expected to build the trust of tourists and allow them to regain confidence in the hotels or related facility.

The said ‘posters’ will be the kind that health officers place in the windows of restaurants abroad with the grade of the said hotel in full display. The …

A few weeks ago, I was positively surprised to see a sign in a sports shop in Karen, stating that they no longer accepted cash, only cards and mobile money.  Until that time, “no-cash” policies in shops was something I had only seen in the Scandinavian countries, and even there, it is still rare. Since the start of the pandemic, however, digital-only payment policies have proliferated in Kenya, and are starting to become commonplace.

Cash as a payment method has been in a slow, terminal decline in Kenya for many years, but it has managed to survive, until now.

Kenya has long been a forerunner in terms of digital payments in Africa. Even as far back as in the Moi era, many shops and supermarkets, most upscale restaurants, and virtually every hotel accepted Visa and Mastercard.  This was at a time when Ethiopia had one single bank branch in the …

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is stealing the life out of the billion-dollar tourism industry in Tanzania, the government has already laid out a warning that at about 477,000 jobs could be lost, while revenue will shrink by 77 per cent if the virus outbreak endures hurting people past October this year.

According to the Tanzanian ministry of tourism, the number of tourists arriving in Tanzania rose from 1.3 million in 2017 to 1.5 million in 2018, whereas this increment made the sector to garner $2.4 billion (7.2 per cent increase) compared to 2.3 billion in 2017.

This means that the forex earning sector could collapse as the virus outbreak takes various dynamics over time and space in Tanzania, thus currently health authorities reports indicated 480 people have contracted the virus and 16 people succumbed by the virus.

Tanzania is one of Africa’s leading tourism markets, with exotic landscapes of the …