In Africa, 32.9 million jobs will be created thanks to the tourism and travel industry in the ten coming years, World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) indicates in its 2019 report on the economic impacts of the tourism sector.

This forecast confirms the rising figures of the performances of the African tourism industry. According to the report, there was about 24.3 million employees in the sector in 2018, a figure which represented 6.7% of the total employment in the continent during the period under review.

The organization also indicates that in 2019, Africa will attract 81.3 million tourists (against 67 million arrivals in 2018 according to the World Tourism Organization-WTO).

Economies should also benefit from the financial inflows provided by those tourists. For instance, in 2018, tourists spent about $58.5 billion in the continent (70% in the tourism and leisure sector while the remaining 30% were recorded in the business tourism sector). The overall spending was equal to 9.6% of the continent’s exports during the period under review. In addition, the sector recorded a 5.6% growth year on year and contributed to 8.5% of GDP.

Let’s note that recently, there has been a rising volume of investments  (both public and private) in the continent’s tourism sector. By the way, the African Union’s single aviation market is one of the most awaited projects for the development of the tourism sector.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou