I mentioned earlier that ‘We do Tourism’, which is working and bringing the various governments’ departments together to focus on what is really going to grow and develop our country while still keeping the fundamentals in place. We need to make sure that we actually welcome and recognise those people in the best possible way.
As the Chief Marketing Officer of this board, what are your projections for the next two years?
We have a wonderful strategy in place. It is called 5-in-5. We want to welcome five million more arrivals in the next five years and that is a stated target. We want to make sure that in the next five years we have four million more international arrivals and we have one million more domestic travelers that are travelling within our country because domestic travel is also very important to us.
We have set a big target and the vast majority, that is from the continent of Africa, so we need to make sure, exactly what you are asking, how do we become more welcoming, how do we look at the visa regime, how do we have a conversation about opening up our borders and how do we make the most sought-after tourist destination and how do we also share our tourist views with other countries?
Are you having any relationships with other tourism organisations in other African countries?
We are in partnership with other tourism organisations in various countries, specifically looking at ways of how we can develop sub-Saharan Africa’s overall tourism destination. We have always talked to other tourism partners within Africa to make sure that we will promote it singularly as the most attractive destination.
Nigeria and South Africa have not been on good terms, does it affect your effort to promote business relationship, and how are you resolving this?
We have an office in Lagos, Nigeria, and the essence is to ensure that we focus on attracting more travelers to our country. From an economist perspective, the department of trade and industry, yes, there is this ongoing conversation. When you look at the kind of attraction that Africa has from a tourist perspective, we need to work and unite together, to see how we can promote this beautiful continent called Africa, how we can do that together. So, to answer your question, I am saying let’s rise above issues and find a way to work together and make things work for us as a continent.
The two should work together; we can’t compete with each other. We are a continent first. In fact, there is lack of understanding around what the continent is and what it offers; let alone the countries that are in them and then down to the provinces.
Which of the African cultures is so sellable to the outside world that gives you this kind of confidence?
What gives me the confidence is that we track what the international traveler is looking for. An international traveler is looking for a relationship with a people. He is not looking at coming to watch some people play music, he is looking to come around, seeing some people play music and then sit down and have conversation with them about, what they were playing, why they were playing it and how they were playing it.