Our mission is to bring Africa and Spain closer
Through outreach, educational, economic, and cultural activities, we foster mutual understanding and strengthen Hispanic African relations.
The growth of the tourism sector in Africa is consolidated
19/01/2017
Today, the eighth Investour was held at FITUR, the Forum for Tourism Investment and Business in Africa, a collaboration between Casa África, the WTO and the popular tourism fair held this week in Madrid. The event was attended by 21 African ministers from the sector and had roundtables, B2B meetings and an appearance before media, dedicated to analysing forecasts for tourism in African.
The good figures for sub-Saharan Africa in 2016, the year in which international arrivals grew by 11%, are enabling the continent to get back on track for annual growth above 5%
“Africa is a solid destination and is once again on the right track. We expect growth in 2017 will be between 5% and 6%, but that is a conservative estimate.” This is what the Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Taleb Rifai, said this morning in a briefing with reporters in which he participated with the Director General of Casa África, Luis Padrón.
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Matilde Asián, said at the opening of Investour that the relatively embryonic state of the tourism sector in Africa is more of an opportunity than a disadvantage, since it will guarantee learning from the good practices and errors in other regions which have a more established tourist tradition.
In Investour we were reminded that there are 80 medium-high level Spanish hotel facilities in Africa and that the major leading chains like Riu and Iberostar, specialists in tourist resorts, have a presence. We were also reminded that the number of Spanish companies based in sub-Saharan Africa has increased sevenfold in the last five years, the result of the continent’s spectacular economic growth and the significant improvement in its business climate.
This year, Investour gathered more than 300 participants, 100 projects, 21 ministers and 26 delegations from the tourism sector of a continent where there are 54 countries. In addition, other territories, such as Jordan, and one of Africa’s largest trading partners, China, were welcomed.
