Research Finds There's Potential for Tourism Growth in SADC Countries

The South African Development Community has a potential for tourism growth.

This according to research conducted by Grant Thornton - an international audit firm - that was tasked by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to assess potential tourism growth in the SADC region.

Addressing delegates from SADC countries at the Tourism Investment Promotion Conference here, spokesperson for the audit firm, Gillian Saunders said the potential growth in the SADC region was enormous. She said however the levels and types of tourism activities were varied.

"The size of the industry, its relative importance, its stage of development differs from one country to another," said Ms Saunders.

This, she said, has had a barring on the type of investment promotion activities appropriate for a particular country.

She said the research found that South Africa and Mauritius were advanced countries regarding tourism with 2.9 and 4.2 percent of gross domestic product growth respectively.

Botswana and Namibia, according to the research were "still maturing".

While Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar and Malan were said to be emerging countries in terms of tourism growth, Zimbabwe had regressed from maturing.

Ms Saunders said that tourism potentials in Lesotho and Swaziland "were now promising".

The NEPAD had prioritised tourism as a factor with potential to diversify economic opportunities, generate income and foreign exchange earnings for African countries.

This is in line with the African Union/NEPAD Tourism Action Plan adopted at the third General Assembly of the AU in Ethiopia in July last year.

Subsequent to the adoption of the action plan, a high level seminar of the SADC was held in Mauritius in August last year and called on the SADC and NEPAD secretariat to work in elaborating the action plan.


The Tourism Action Plan prioritises the promotion of investment in tourism infrastructure and products.

In addition, the NEPAD/SADC Tourism Investment Promotion Initiative aims to asses the nature and state of investment in the tourism sector in the SADC region and devises adequate intervention for effective promotion of tourism investment in SADC.


BuaNews (Tshwane)

October 25, 2005
Posted to the web October 25, 2005

Themba Gadebe
Johannesburg

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