BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Moses Vilakati MP Moses has implored the continent’s tourism ministers to address issues of connectivity for improved and seamless intra-African travel.
“Connectivity is very critical in elevating the continent’s tourism profile. Minister Patricia De Lile, please revive South African Airlink (SAA) as soon as possible. The airline was really leading us well to West and East Africa. Now we have to connect in European countries when travelling within Africa making these countries difficult to access,” said the Minister.
He was speaking during the Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban.
The Minister went on to appeal for urgent attention to matters of visas across the continent. He urged the panel of African tourism ministers to align their visas with other countries and cited that Eswatini had looked at countries that were visa exempt in South Africa for purposes of aligning with that for increased tourism activity in the region.
Another one of the recommendations put forward by the Minister for elevating African tourism to encourage increased tourism traction was for countries to embrace and capitalize on their unique cultures.
“Each one of our countries has unique cultures. We should embrace cultural tourism and capitalize on it. In Eswatini we pride ourselves in our culture spanning over 400 years. If we all did this, it would also give us an opportunity to promote the African continent as one unique attraction,” said the Minister.
The Minister of Tourism in South Africa, Patricia De Lille, stressed the importance of collaboration among African countries. She invited tourism leaders to rethink and sharpen their focus for a better Africa that creates sustainable industries and sustainable infrastructure.
“We must now walk the talk. When we go home, we must implement what we have agreed on here and have a practical plan as African Minister and the AU. Please use this opportunity and secure those deals so that we can attract more people to Africa,” she said.
The Kingdom of Eswatini earlier this week joined over 20 African countries for this year’s edition of Africa’s Travel Indaba taking place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (Durban ICC) in South Africa.
This 3-day tourism show is renowned for being one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar.
Africa’s Travel Indaba takes place annually, bringing together provincial authorities, provincial products and African Countries.
The Kingdom of Eswatini led by Vilakati, once again showcased Eswatini’s unique tourism products to over 1000 international buyers as well as tour operators and travel media from different corners of the world. This is all in the spirit of promoting Destination Eswatini to the world for purposes of increasing tourism arrivals, tourism receipts and the length of stay by tourists visiting the country.
