Africa’s brand needs to be strengthened for tourism on the continent to grow and recover.

“This is Africa’s moment to reclaim its positioning globally,” said South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Tourism, Fish Mahlalela, at the three-day United Nations World Tourism Organization Regional Conference for Africa, which concluded in Windhoek yesterday (June 16).

Addressing the high-level Ministerial Panel under the theme ‘Strengthening Brand Africa for the swift recovery of the tourism sector’, Mahlalela highlighted the importance of rebuilding the continental brand through actions that dispelled negative perceptions about the business environment on the continent.

“To position Africa, we need to show the best of who we are and position us as an active and sustainable continent; we need to highlight our best features and tourism adventures and, in addition, we need to further position Africa within the minds of consumers and travellers. We need to listen and see what they want,” he said.

Mahlalela called on Africa’s development partners to drive initiatives to change the narrative about Africa. “We need to understand the current perceptions about Africa’s ability and what informs such perceptions and, as we do that, we need to answer as to what we as African governments are doing to eliminate those negative perceptions about ‘being African’.” He said this needed to be urgently addressed.

He further pointed out that African governments needed to collectively create an environment that was conducive to driving growth in their tourism markets by providing policy that would drive collaboration in the areas of product development, increased regional routes, air access and data sharing.

“As we discuss Brand Africa, we need to answer as governments on how we are contributing to making the continent more attractive to established professionals and business leaders in the diaspora, those who are ready to contribute to developing and repositioning our continent as a prime destination for investment, work and leisure.”

Windhoek Pledge

On the back of a series of workshops and a Ministerial Think Tank, UNWTO’s African member states unanimously endorsed the Windhoek Pledge on Advocating Brand Africa.

Under the terms of the Windhoek Pledge, members will engage both public- and private-sector stakeholders as well as local communities to build a new, inspiring narrative for tourism across the continent. They will identify positive, human-centred stories and, through strengthened partnerships with the media, showcase them to the world, reaching new and diverse tourism source markets.

Over the coming weeks, UNWTO will work with all signatories to create a common roadmap towards establishing Brand Africa. This will include establishing common values and goals and identifying funding needs and opportunities, as well as providing branding toolkits for destinations, including guidelines and recommendations and training and capacity-building in market intelligence, digital marketing and data management.