AFRICA: Fleeing Airline Staff Avoid Irate Passengers After Flight Cancellations, Still More Africans Travel

Africans are increasingly driving the growing demand for tourism in their home continent, contrary to perceptions, a new UN report suggests.

International visitor numbers to Africa more than doubled from 1995-2014.

While an average of four out of 10 of them were from other African countries, the figure rose to two out of three in sub-Saharan Africa.

Analysts say liberalising air transport and further relaxing visa rules could boost tourism further.
It currently accounts for nearly 9% of the continent's economy.

The latest figures are in a report by the UN conference on trade and development (Unctad), entitled Economic Development in Africa Report 2017: Tourism for Transformative and Inclusive Growth.

International visitor numbers averaged a rise of 6% a year, going from 24 million in 1995-98, to 56 million between 2011 and 2014.

The sector supports more than 21 million jobs - or 1 in 14 jobs - on the continent. International tourists arrivals and tourism revenues grew at 6% and 9% over 20 years.

Over the next decade continued growth is projected to add an extra 11 million jobs in Africa.The report adds that to realise the potential of tourism within Africa for the continent's economic growth, governments should take steps to liberalise air transport, promote the free movement of persons, ensure currency convertibility and, crucially, recognise the value of African tourism and plan for it.

The African Union last year launched an African passport to ease travel, however, this is only available to a few officials at the moment.

Although Ghana last year announced that it would drop visa requirements for other African nationals, in some countries it can be easier for citizens of Western countries to get visas, than fellow Africans.

It can also be very hard, and expensive, to fly between different African countries.

The UN report said speeding up the visa process can have relatively fast and tangible impacts.

In Rwanda, the abolition of visa requirements for fellow members of the East African Community in 2011 helped increase intraregional tourists from 283,000 in 2010, to 478,000 in 2013," the report said.

Flying between the West African capitals of Freetown and Banjul should take about an hour. But because of the region's poor air connections, it can be quicker and easier to fly via Morocco or Belgium, although that could take a day, or even three.

To Travel to Gambia from Sierra Leone, this journey of 700km (400 miles) should take about an hour and The Gambia is a popular tourist destination, which is served by charter flights from across Europe.

But there are just two flights a week from Freetown..

One option would have been to fly with Royal Air Maroc via Casablanca, where there can be a stopover of 30 hours with no automatic entitlement to hotel accommodation.

So it is actually quicker, but far more expensive, to fly to Belgium's capital Brussels and then connect to Banjul.
That "only" takes 24 hours.

Another option would have been with Air Cote D'Ivoire, a relatively new kid on the aviation block.
This would mean flying via its hub in Abidjan, then to Dakar and onward to Banjul.

However, one needs to stay overnight in Abidjan, and possibly another night in Dakar to be able catch Brussels Airlines which is virtually the only reliable means of flying to Banjul from the Senegalese capital.

So the journey time would take three days.In the end, the best option is to drive from Freetown to Conakry, before flying to Dakar, Senegal's capital, where you need to spend a night to get my connecting flight to Banjul the following day.

You may spend two days travelling for a trip that should take slightly over an hour.

To return you may have to fly from Banjul to Dakar, spend the night and fly next evening to Conakry.

You will meet more travellers most of them business people who complain about flights, saying it makes travel more expensive.

You will have to change your ticket to fly from Banjul via Brussels to Nairobi because your airline may cancel flights to Dakar, from where you may be scheduled to connect to Nairobi.

You may have to wait two days which will cost you time and money to wait another two days at least to fly to Nairobi via Dakar.

Several African countries established national airlines after independence, mainly focusing on flights to destinations outside the continent.

Many of these carriers were propped up financially and protected by regulation, stifling competition and leaving domestic and regional routes undeveloped for a long time.

Safety has also been an issue because of comparatively high accident rates, and regulators outside Africa have imposed heavy restrictions.

Even some African airlines with good safety records are blocked from flying to the European Union (EU) airports because of a lack of confidence in African safety regulators.

Another factor is that some African countries have still not opened up their skies to each other,allowed other countries' carries to use their airports, yet they have opened up to carriers from other continents. Nigeria a typical example.

As a result, it is often cheaper to fly from an African city via London, Amsterdam, or Dubai and back to a neighbouring African city than to travel direct.

Non-African airlines currently fly about 80% of intercontinental traffic to and from Africa.

The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), a policy of the African Union, is due to be introduced this year.
Implementing the SAATM, which is similar to the EU's single aviation market, would go a long way towards making African air travel more competitive by reducing protectionist policies.

Half a century after independence, many African countries still have better transport links with their former colonial powers than their neighbours!

There are several flights a day from former British colony The Gambia to London, but very few to neighbouring Senegal.
Senegal's capital, Dakar, is of course well served with flights to its former colonial master, France.

One reason for the lack of flights between major West African cities is the collapse of regional airlines such as Ghana Airways, Air Senegal and several in Nigeria.

Some West African states have tried to address this by setting up a new airline, ASKY, based in the Togolese capital, Lome where a massive airport expansion is underway.

It was established in 2008 but does not yet connect all West African countries.

One expert in the aviation industry says the passenger flow in West Africa is very low, so it does not make business sense to fly some routes.

With sensible and business-friendly tax regime the situation would improve.
The Vice-President of KLM Africa, Frank Legre, told journalists in Freetown recently that the cost of a plan ticket to London largely consisted of taxes.

A ticket London will cost $825 yet KLM actual price without tax is $350, which shows that over $500 tax has been levied on the ticket.

While it is true that many West Africans cannot afford to fly, the middle-class is increasing and if prices were lower, more people would develop the habit of flying and so it might become profitable for airlines to link West African cities before too long.

In the meantime, the idea of free movement of goods and services as envisioned by the founding heads of state of the regional body Ecowas remains a dream.

The Nigerian government announced a takeover of the country's biggest airline,Arik Air to prevent it closing. But this is just the latest example of problems in Nigeria's aviation industry.

The government agency (Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria) now responsible for supervising the airline said the decision was made to instill sanity in the country's aviation sector and to prevent a major catastrophe.

Customer service at Arik Air is at times non-existent. When the airline cancels a flight, most of the time its ground staff flee rather than deal with the fallout from irate passengers.

As the company's troubles mounted at the end of last year, 70% of its international flights were delayed.
The firm's staff bear the brunt for an airline that even by Nigerian standards is a byword for utter dysfunction. Last month the company was forced to issue a plea for passengers not to attack its employees.

The government agency that pushed the airline into receivership reeled off an astonishing rap sheet of Arik's alleged offences - enormous debt, bad governance, and erratic operational challenges.

As Nigeria's biggest airline, the government decided that it could not allow the company to collapse.

But to fly Arik often means never getting off the ground.

A passenger was at Enugu airport when he was told his flight was cancelled. The man beside him at the check-in desk just shook his head, all his flights had been cancelled for the past two days.

To survive Nigerian air travel means coming up with new strategies. First, find the most reliable airline and stick with it. And, if possible, take the first flight in the morning as it's normally guaranteed to go on time,give or take an hour.

Delays become compounded throughout the day as most airlines operate a shuttle service. So a good bet is that a mid-afternoon flight will probably turn into early evening flight. Passengers normally only miss their flight if it actually leaves on time.
Nobody wants to spend too much time at the airports here. Port Harcourt was named the world's worst in 2015.

You may always feel safe on flights apart from after a rocky landing when several of the overhead luggage bins burst open.

To be fair to the airlines, Nigeria is not the easiest place to operate. International carriers face huge issues repatriating their profits as they can't get their hands on dollars because of Nigeria's current economic crisis.
The dollar shortage has also led to aviation fuel shortages causing massive disruption in the past few months.

The worst inconvenience faced travellers to Nigeria when Abuja's airport was closed for six weeks while major repairs were carried out on its runway. At least one airline damaged its landing gear on the pot-holed tarmac.

With the capital's only airport shut down, the government rerouted flights to an airport in the nearby city of Kaduna.
The small airport had capacity to handle only 300 passengers a day compared to the 5,000 who pass through Abuja's terminal. You can imagine how chaotic it was

Travelling to the capital from Kaduna involved a two-hour journey along a road that was hit by a spate of kidnappings. The government is promised to put on extra security.

Several international airlines declined to fly into Kaduna, although direct flights to Lagos, Kano or Port Harcourt will continued.

There are, however, a few perks about air travel in Nigeria: Free snacks onboard; unbelievably cheap excess baggage and the fact that you can board with as much carry-on luggage as you can actually carry on.

Also, during a year's travel in Nigeria, bags have always arrived on time.Delayed passengers may give you great company while waiting at the airport.

Attacks by the Islamic State group have led to a dramatic fall in tourism in parts of North Africa, where millions rely on the trade to make a living.

New figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) show that visits to North Africa fell by 8% in 2015, bucking a global upward trend.

International tourism grew by 4.4% overall, to reach a total of 1.18bn arrivals, according to the UNWTO.
But countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco have been hit hard.

Beach resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, where a passenger jet was loaded with a bomb in November, and Sousse in Tunisia, where gunmen opened fire at holidaymakers in June, have seen visitor numbers sharply decline.

Some 3,500 British tourists left Tunisia in the days after the Sousse attack, in which 38 people 30 of them British were shot by Islamist gunman at the Port El Kantaoui resort.

Tunisia was still reeling from an attack in March, when gunmen killed 22 people at the Bardo museum in Tunis, mostly European tourists. And the country was still attempting to reinvigorate tourism following the Arab Spring.

Egypt was also trying to rehabilitate its image after the 2011 uprising there, and had been promoting the Sharm el-Sheikh resort as a safe and luxurious destination. But the plane crash, which killed 148 people and was attributed to IS, led a number of foreign countries to ground all flights to and from the resort.

Morocco has not suffered directly from terrorism, but the Foreign Office does warn potential travellers that they face a high threat from terrorism in the country.

Limited data available for Africa as a whole suggested that tourism was down by 3% to 53m - 8% in North Africa and 1% in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Strong continued growth in other parts of the world meant that global tourism rose, although no individual region saw gains as high as North Africa's decline.

Europe, the Americas, and Asia and the Pacific all recorded about 5% growth. Arrivals reached 609 million in Europe, 29 million more than in 2014. Arrivals in the Americas grew 9 million to 191 million and Asia and the Pacific recorded 277 million, 13 million more than last year.

Arrivals to the Middle East increased by 3% to a total of 54 million.

China is among the largest sources of tourists, according to the UNWTO, benefitting Asian destinations such as Japan and Thailand, as well as the United States and various European countries.

The number of tourists from Russian and Brazil declined significantly, reflecting the economic constraints in both countries.
Citing a larger degree of uncertainty and volatility, the UNWTO has predicted between 3.5% and 4.5% of growth in global tourism in 2016.


Tourism Observer
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AFRICA: Internet Boosts Tourism

Currently, there are approximately 345 million internet users in Africa, representing 9.3% of the total global population and a penetration rate of 27.7%.

These analytics presented in a hospitality report by an African online travel agency, Jumia Travel, reflects the opportunity that lies for tourism and the hospitality industry players in exploiting the internet to grow e-tourism.

The growth of 4G network has also extended to more than half of the African countries, with 72 live LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks in 32 countries as at mid-2016.

Although its adoption still lags behind the rest of the world with only 20% 4G population coverage, taking advantage of 4G solutions, currently in the market, will provide more efficiency and convenience to any e-tourism business.

For instance, the report identifies Wi-Fi as a top priority preference for hotel guests in Africa, with 23% demand.

For this group of travelers, most likely those who take up 31.4% of business spending, are looking for a fast and reliable network connection and a huge amount of bandwidth to ensure their dealings continue uninterrupted.

Investing in the 4G therefore can help hotels provide more personalized guest experience as well as improved operational efficiency.

Mobile services and technologies, generated 6.7% of GDP in Africa (around USD 150 billion of economic value).

This is expected to increase to more than USD 210 billion (7.6% of GDP) by 2020, while the number of unique subscribers is estimated to reach 725 million.

In this case, the more internet connected Africa becomes, the more likely the pressure will be for service providers in the tourism hospitality industry, to adopt the internet and reap from its massive advantages.

Capitalizing on technological advancements, presented by the invention of the internet, and its massive penetration in the continent, is sure to give players like hoteliers a competitive edge.

Possible direct ROI is prospective from increased bookings from new and return customers.

A notable fact from the hospitality report is that low levels of digital skills, remain a major barrier to mobile internet adoption, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Supporting digital literacy by tourism stakeholders in the continent, is therefore an essential element in promoting e-tourism in Africa.

In its aim to connect the whole world to the internet, Facebook launched its Free Basics initiative in 2016; connecting almost half the African countries to its free internet service.

Furthermore, the African Union recently launched the Africa domain name for the continent, a move that gives Africa its digital identity, and aims to decrease the cost of acquiring a URL, which then allows people and businesses to better reach the world.

AFRICA: Some Of Africa's Complex Traditions

Bride Price

Lobola is an ancient and controversial Southern African tradition in which the families of a bride and groom negotiate how much the groom must pay for the bride.

All negotiations must be done in writing, never by phone or in person. The two families will not speak until negotiations are complete.

Spitting On Children For Blessings

Members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit as a way of blessing. Men spit on newborns and say they are bad in the belief that if they praise a baby, it will be cursed.

Maasai warriors will also spit in their hands before shaking the hand of an elder.

Jumping On Bulls

In order to prove their manhood in the Ethiopian Hamer tribe, young boys must run, jump and land on the back of a bull before then attempting to run across the backs of several bulls. They do this multiple times, and usually when naked.

Veils For Men

The Ahaggaren Tuaregs of Algeria are part of a larger group of Berber-speaking Tuaregs. In their culture, the men wear veils almost all the time.

However, they can take their veils off when inside family camps or while traveling.

Women Stay In Their Own Houses

In the Gio tribe in Ivory Coast, each wife has her own small house that she lives in with her children until they are old enough to move out.

The children never live with their fathers.

Women Don't Mourn Elders

In the Southwestern Congo, the Suku tribe honors ancestors and elders, when they die, with a ceremony held in the clearing of a forest.

Here, gifts and offerings are brought, but outsiders and all women are forbidden to attend.

Boy Children Grow Up With Their Marternal Uncles

When male children reach age 5 or 6 in the Northern Angolan Songo tribe, they are sent to live with their uncles on their mother’s side.

This is because chiefs inherit their position through matrilineal lines.

Wealth Determined By Number Of Cows

In the Pokot tribe in Kenya, wealth is measured by how many cows a family has. Most Pokot people are either “corn people” or “cow people” meaning that’s what they cultivate on their land, but all Pokot people measure their wealth by cows.

The number of women a man can marry is determined by how many cows he has.

Khweta Ceremony

This Southern African ceremony is practiced by several tribes and is how a young boy proves his manhood.

When they are of age, boys are sent to spend several days or weeks in a circumcision lodge during winter, where they’re put through rigorous and often dangerous tests and rituals such as continuous dancing until exhaustion, and circumcision.

Clans Named After Animals

The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania have strict policies against killing wild animals. They keep cattle and livestock, but leave wild animals untouched.

In fact, each clan is associated with a specific wild species, which they often keep close to them and treat as a clan member.

Himba Smear With Butter Fat And Ochre

The Himba people of Northern Namibia cover their skin with a mixture of butter fat and ochre — a natural earth pigment containing iron oxide to protect themselves from the sun.

For that reason, the Himba people often appear to have a red skin tone.

San People of Botswana

The San People of Botswana, also called Bushmen, are hunter gatherers who were evicted from their ancestral land in the 1950s.

They were forbidden to hunt and forced to apply for permits to enter reserves.

The San switched to farming but they continued to gather herbs for medication and plants for food. Deprived of the ability to hunt, San numbers dwindled.

Sudanese Latuka People

In the Sudanese Latuka tribe, when a man wants to marry a woman, he kidnaps her. Elderly members of his family go and ask the girl’s father for her hand in marriage, and if dad agrees, he beats the suitor as a sign of his acceptance of the union.

If the father disagrees, however, the man might forcefully marry the woman anyway.

Bride Grooms Fight

The Fulani tribe live in many countries in West Africa and follow a tradition called Sharo. Sharo happens when two young men want to marry the same woman.

To compete for her hand, they beat one another up.

The men must suppress signs of pain and the one who takes the beating without showing signs of pain can take the wife.

Traditional Cleansing

The Chewa people are one of the largest indigenous groups of Malawi but live throughout Central and Southern Africa.

When a person dies, one family tradition involves taking the body into the woods, slitting the throat, and forcing water through the body to cleanse it.

They do this by squeezing the corpse’s stomach until what comes out the rear end runs clear.

Lip Widening

When a girl becomes a teenager in the Surma tribe of Southern Sudan, she begins the process of lip stretching. The girl has her bottom teeth removed to make space for a lip plate, which is increased in size annually.

AFRICA: Potential Of Chinese Tourism In Africa

Addis Ababa, has recently hosted the 59th Meeting of the UNWTO Commission for Africa. Held between 18-21 April, the Commission included a High-level Meeting on Chinese Outbound Tourism to Africa, where regional representatives debated the potential that the sector brings to the continent.

Attended by 21 tourism Ministers from the African continent, the UNWTO Regional Commission for Africa has become the best platform to discuss tourism trends in the continent and the potential that Chinese tourism can induce at regional level.

The attendees also included Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism, Entertainment of Jamaica and Hongtao Wei, Vice Chairman of the China National Tourism Administration.

The 59th edition of the Commission was complemented by a key interactive session on the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development which is being celebrated worldwide through 2017.

“We all come out of Africa, and went on to inhabit the world, making Africa the first source market in history. Africa is the future and Ethiopia is the soul and heart of Africa” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai, opening the event.

UNWTO Secretary-General received a Recognition Award from H.E. Mr. Muktar Kedir, Minister of Good Governance of Ethiopia to highlight his legacy to promote tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability.

During his intervention, Mr. Muktar Kedir, described his country ´as a unique land where the earliest ancestors of human beings first walks upright, we honestly expect Ethiopia to be one of the prime choices of tourists in the near future that makes them feel safe and enjoy their stay in this yet un explored land´, he said.

The Commission served to motivate African Member States to undersign the African Charter on Sustainable and Responsible Tourism as well supporting the African Caravan on Sustainable and Responsible Tourism led by Morocco through activities to be organized and celebrated during the campaign of the International Year.

China has become a major investor in the African continent, contributing to infrastructure development and reshaping the economic landscape, and is the world´s largest outbound market since 2012 after recording double digit growth in expenditure every year since 2004.

The meeting witnessed a high level of participation not only from African governments but also private sector stakeholders who discussed the dynamics of the Chinese outbound market together with ways to provide guidance for policies and strategies to African Member States, Chinese stakeholders and African businesses.

The event was a combination of keynote presentations from UNWTO, IVY Alliance Tourism Consulting, AVIAREPS and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), interactive panels and roundtable discussions.

The Commission was informed that the 60th CAF will be hosted in Chengdu China within the framework of the 22nd Session of the General Assembly, to be held in September 2017. In addition, members of the Commission unanimously welcomed Nigeria´s expression of interest to host the 61st CAF to be held in 2018.

KENYA: Donkeys To Become Extinct In Africa, Large Exports To China For Traditional Medicine

While other African countries are banning the export of donkey skins, Kenya is doing a brisk trade in the commodity so sought after in China.

Gelatin from the skins is used in traditional Chinese medicine ejiao. So far, five countries in the world, four of them in Africa, have barred sales of donkey products out of concern that demand from Asia will quickly outstrip local supply.

Kenya, home to more than 1.8 million donkeys, vital as beasts of burden, doesn’t appear to be worried about that.

Last year officials approved a $3 million donkey abattoir run by two Chinese entrepreneurs in Baringo county, northwest of Nairobi.

It was the country’s second donkey slaughterhouse, after another built in Naivasha the year before. Today, it processes about 600 donkeys a day, from suppliers in Kenya as well as Tanzania.

Over the last two years, a global trade in donkey skins has emerged as ejiao has become popular among middle-class Chinese who prize it as an anti-aging agent, an aphrodisiac, a cure for insomnia or poor circulation, among other health benefits.

At least 1.8 million donkey hides are traded a year, according to a report last month from the Donkey Sanctuary, a British nonprofit.

China’s own donkey population has more than halved since the 1990s, which has increased global demand—estimated at 4 million skins a year, according to the group.

Other African countries are getting into the hide business—ejiao can sell for up to $360 per kg in China.

Ethiopia, with the continent’s largest donkey population of 7.4 million, has built two large-scale, Chinese-owned slaughterhouses.

Cases of illegal “bush slaughter,” where the animals are usually stolen, have been reported in Tanzania, Egypt, and South Africa and beyond.

Gelatin produced from donkey hide is a key ingredient of one of China's favorite traditional remedies, known as ejiao, which is used to treat a range of ailments from colds to insomnia.

But as the rising power shifts towards advanced industry and away from traditional agriculture, donkeys are in decline. State statistics show the population has fallen from 11 million to six million over the last 20 years.

China is now increasingly looking to Africa to boost its stocks, and imports donkeys from countries across the continent. But flourishing trade has hit several roadblocks.

The donkey trade in Africa threatens to raise prices of an animal that is crucial to the survival of many families, especially in rural areas.

In Burkina Faso, one of two countries to ban exports last year, the cost of a donkey went up to £108 from £60 between 2014 and 2016, according to the Donkey Sanctuary.

It’s estimated that one donkey can support a family of six, according to Brooke, an equine welfare charity that spoke out last year against the growing abuse and theft of donkeys for export to China.

Niger recently became the latest African state to ban exports of donkeys, following a surge in sales to China.

Government officials reported that 80,000 animals had been sold in the first 9 months of 2016, compared with 27,000 in 2015, and warned that the donkey population would be "decimated" on current trends.

In August, Burkina Faso took the same step, after 45,000 donkeys were slaughtered in six months from a total population of 1.4 million.

In both cases, the value of donkeys soared and the fledgling industry delivered a valuable stream of foreign currency. But growth came at a cost.

In Kenya, where drought in several areas is expected to worsen, the situation is even more precarious for donkeys.

Working donkeys are vital to people’s livelihoods here—they carry water and food for families, fuel and building materials.

They help people earn the money they use to put food on the table and children in school, said Dil Peeling, head of animal welfare and sustainability at Brooke.

Beyond the severe damage to donkey populations, the new industry caused environmental and economic problems.

The spread of abattoirs generated a backlash. In the Burkinabe village of Balole, local farmers reportedly attacked and closed a slaughterhouse in protest at blood and offal leaking into their water supplies.

The donkey boom also attracted farmers from other livestock trades, which suffered as a result, and were also affected by inflation.

"In Niger and Burkina Faso the rising value of donkey hide and meat created inflationary impact in other sectors," says Dr. Emmanuel Igbinoba. "The price of other animals rose because of the donkey, not because there was demand for this animal, which caused imbalance in the economy."

The exporting countries suffered from a lack of regulation, according to Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Africa Project and host of the China in Africa podcast.

Just as with other livestock, raw materials and other natural resources, the scale of the demand from China is often so large that it can rapidly overwhelm the supply of any single resource, he says.

Governments that trade with China have an obligation to their people to regulate trade so it does not deplete any single resource to the point where it imposes burdens on their own people.

China's huge appetite for donkeys does create opportunities that exporters can benefit from with careful planning, says Igbinoba.

There is steady demand for the gelatin, he says. If African countries can regulate well, with high standard abattoirs, and train people how to rear these animals, the donkey can be an important source of income.

Burkina has announced plans to regulate donkey sales, but will face competition from continental rivals willing to pick up the trade.

Major economies such as Kenya and South Africa are scaling up their facilities to meet Chinese demand, and a black market is also flourishing across the continent.

Chinese demand is expected to increase with a growing consumer class willing to spend on luxury goods such as ejiao.
The challenge for suppliers is to ensure the trade is a blessing rather than a curse.