Mpumalanga
First International
Institute for Peace Through Tourism African Conference
WasCelebrated in Mpumalanga Province, South
Africa
Delegates from twenty-two
countries tackle ambitious agenda focusing on Africa and
Building Bridges of Peace Through Sustainable Community
Tourism Development
(March 2002, Nelspruit, South
Africa) - A dramatic, torch-lighting ceremony accompanied
by a parade of young people carrying the flags of
Africa's 53 countries, heralded the opening of the First
IIPT African Conference on Peace through Tourism, March
3-7 in Mpumalanga's capital, Nelpspruit, South
Africa.
Themed "Building Bridges of Peace
through Sustainable Community Tourism Development," the
forum was presided over by the Hon. Valli Moosa, South
Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs, Lou D'Amore,
president and founder of the International Institute for
Peace through Tourism, Dr. Noel Brown, Chairperson of
IIPT's Advisory Board, and Mira Berman, Executive
Director of the Africa Travel Association. The two-year
old Emnotweni Arena and Conference Center served as venue
for the proceedings.
More details below
Area InformationKruger National Park
A new tourism village and entertainment center, the
Matsamo Cultural Park, opened in July in the village of
Mpumalanga at Kruger National Park's Numbi Gate. The
attraction is owned by the Mdluli people, who live in the
northeast near the borders of Mozambique and Swaziland. A
grotto-style pool, a dozen luxury chalets, two
entertainment arenas and a 300-seat restaurant supplement
safari adventures and tours of tribal villages. Two
on-site villages feature Swazi homes known as imvelos,
along with traditional artisans and tribal
healers.
Sabi Sabi, a property
within the private Sabi Sands Game Reserve next to Kruger
National Park, recently opened a new facility called
Earth Lodge. Included in the tony offering are 13 suites,
a conference room and a spa. Guests can relax with a
vintage from the new wine cellar &emdash; served, of
course, by personal butler.
Lion Sands, another
luxurious safari lodge, opened in April. Also within Sabi
Sands Game Reserve, the new 20-room property comprises
both the River Lodge and South Camp. And for those who
tire of looking at animals through binoculars, Lion Sands
also provides an "Africam," an innovative Internet site
that tracks a local pride of lions. Nearly 300 attendees
heard more than 30 presentations by tourism ministers,
industrial and financial leaders, and discussion
workshops centered on three main themes: education about
other countries /cultures; solutions for poverty
elimination/community outreach programs;and conflict
resolution/regional; and developing a 21st-century agenda
for "African Peace through Tourism."
Plenary sessions emphasized
sustainable development including poverty elimination and
community-based tourism; tourism and environment follow
up to the Rio +10 conference on eco-tourism; healing the
wounds of conflict through tourism; cultural heritage
tourism; educating for culture of peace through tourism;
access for the physically disabled; and promotion of the
World Tourism Organization's code of ethics.
Concurrent workshops afforded
participants the opportunity to exchange reports and
updates on completed projects and works in progress, and
to address positive and negative aspects/ challenges
facing the development of tourism on the African
continent.
Mira Berman, Executive Director of
Africa Travel Association, an organizing partner and
sponsor of the Conference, led two of the well-attended
workshops, covering: Activities to Foster/Encourage
Domestic, Intra-Africa Tourism (Promoting Intra-Africa
Tourism).
Discussions touched on positive
and negative tourism challenges and issues impacting the
promotion on both domestic and intra-Africa
tourism.
Activities to Foster/Encourage
Domestic/Intra-Africa Tourism
The words "tourism" and "tourist"
are all-embracing ones, no matter if inter or
intra-continental travel. Despite current global
challenges to both, the "glass half full" was more in
evidence during these sessions, with positive reports on
heads up intra-Africa activities already underway
.
Regionalization and
partnerships:
There is stability and peace in
part of the continent, encouraging other parts to learn
(even emulate?) by example &endash; e.g.. Excitement
greeted the announcement of trans-border, cooperative
efforts to open wildlife preserves, which will not only
restore natural migratory paths, but encourage growth in
multi-visa tourist traffic between countries (e.g.. The
Greater Limpopo Frontier Park between South Africa,
Zimbabwe and Mozambique) and the Okavango Upper Zambezi
International Tourism (OUZIT) Spatial Development
Initiative (SDI incorporating game parks in: Angola,
Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and potentially
coastal areas in Mozambique); and CEAC (Congo, RDC,
Gabon, and Angola).
Natural and wildlife but one of
Africa's attractions. Other regionalization Initiatives
include SADEC/RETOSA (Southern Africa Development
Economic Community/Regional Tourism of South Africa),
currently developing COMESA, a cross-country passport
between eastern and southern Africa, including South
Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho,
Botswana and Namibia; a 20-country, common market for
East and Central Africa; the East African Tourism
Commission's Total Passport, making it easier for
citizens to travel throughout the region comprising
Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), and renewal of its West
African counterpart, ECOWAS (a 10-country, common market
for the West African countries), linking Nigeria, Benin,
Togo, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Guinee, Gambia and Senegal.
Several negative issues addressed
were war and conflict (representatives from Rwanda and
Angola provided examples) leading to nearly
insurmountable domestic barriers to movement: lack of
disposable income for leisure travel; prejudice born of
suspicion, leading to xenophobia and its resulting
psychic barriers. The role of the media to this end must
also be recognized and addressed for its ability to
discourage tourism continent-wide by negative reporting
from or about individual countries. More on-site,
journalist familiarization trips are necessary for
expanded, accurate information sharing.
More tangible delays are visible
via transportation availability and the dissemination of
travel information when there are delays and/or
cancellations of flights (an all-too-often occurrence);
prohibitive visa requirements and costs and possible
solutions to expedite intra-African travel (ability to
obtain visas upon arrival; excessively high
international/local airport taxes and fees; need for
better infrastructure and standardization/pricing
structures of accommodations.
Among the major stumbling blocks
to smooth tourist accessibility has been high airfares
and insufficient reliable national and intra-regional
airlines flying to source markets. According to Tewodros
Tamrat, Director/Corporate & Industry Affairs of the
Nairobi-based African Airlines Association, Africa's 4.5%
average air traffic growth rate is expected to continue
over next 15 years. Tamrat warned, "Our 38 member
carriers are at risk because many economies are weak,
costs are very high, and there are still too many travel
restrictions. We are at a crossroads and need to take
these measures to improve…our goal is not
necessarily privatization, but to be run on sound,
profit-making business principles. Establishing stable
peace and sustainability are a major step."
Niche/Special Interest
Marketing:
Essential to increasing arrivals
to the continent is the ability to attract a wider
variety of visitors. Africa offers myriad possibilities
for educational/student/youth travel;
meetings/convention/incentive venues; sporting events and
incentives (e.g. April's first Interworld Sports
Competition in Nairobi) , cultural festivals
(handicrafts/theater/film/music/dance &endash; i.e.,
Zanzibar's "Dhow Countries Festival" in June is a
cultural extravaganza of cinema, music and arts from all
over Africa, the Gulf States, Iran, India, Pakistan and
islands of the Indian Ocean); historic interests
(archeological/roots &endash; African Diaspora and
Bermuda's vanguard African Heritage Diaspora Heritage
Trail); Senior travel; VFR (Visiting Friends &
Family/Reunions); faith-based/spiritual pilgrimages to
the continent's many biblical sites, and the far-flung,
ex-patriot market.
Tools of the Trade
Translating ideas and plans into action requires physical
and technical action utilizing "people power". People are
the most important resource for making tourism work, not
only intra-Africa, but around the world. From the
training of immigration officers to free movement of
intra-continental labor, African initiatives can now make
full use of training technology available both in print
and online. These include hospitality industry
cross-training, which produces multitalented staffs able
to provide highest-quality service.
Additionally, bilateral agreements
and memos of understanding between countries can foster
more effective intra-country marketing and promotion of
destinations/attractions. Regional target marketing could
be further enhanced by the development of a
country-to-country "Uni-visa," allowing for easy
country-to-country air connections among the 38 national
carriers. Good news from Mr. Tamrat, is that
approximately two dozen West and Central African nations
have agreed to liberalize air transport among them. To be
signed this August, the pact permits participating
nations' airlines to carry passengers between any
participating state, allows carriers to set fares without
prior government approvals, and ends limits on capacity
or frequencies of service among the states. Participants
can phase in certain provisions for up to two
years.
Another promising start is
promotion of "Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, "
recently introduced as the first effort to globally
market a destination as a "brand, " to promote and
support tourism activities of disadvantaged communities,
and establish partnerships locally and internationally to
establish and monitor a trademark.
Strategic Alliances
Talking and working points developed during these
intra-Africa marketing workshops provided a framework for
implementation presented at the conference's closing
Round Table. Public/Private partnerships stimulate not
only good business, but also good will. Africa Travel
Association strives to not only promote tourism to the
continent, but to stimulate short- and long-term
sustainable mechanisms for peace through
tourism.
Next steps to be implemented to
this lofty and achievable goal: More involvement and
sharing of information by the media; promoting intra- as
well as inter-Africa tourism; establishing the first
African chapter of IIPT in Mpumalanga; founding more ATA
chapters (two new chapters were launched following the
conference &endash; in Gauteng and West Cape); continuing
with networking and linkages with cross-border tourism
programs and trans-border national parks; developing an
"alliance of tourism," using the Bermuda Heritage Trail
model; encouraging more strategic alliances between
private/public sector hotels, transportation, education
(training of future industry leaders) and financial
bodies; and closer communication between Africa's
Ministers for Transportation, Finance, Immigration and
Tourism.
Africa as a tourism product has
both tremendous potential and impossible-to-ignore
challenges. The First African Conference on Peace through
Tourism hopes to be a catalyst for change, or, as Ms.
Berman said, "Another bridge being built between
developed and undeveloped countries &endash; the have and
have-not peoples of the world. While these bridges span
enormous physical, mental and cultural gaps, taking
years, even decades to construct, many victories of a
smaller, less spectacular nature are taking place on a
daily basis. These win-win situations might be compared
to the "opening of doors, " &endash; whether they be the
door to a mud hut, a Sultan's palace, or even the White
House. All are important in the final analysis, like
chalk marks on the wall of time… This first African
conference is opening many doors."
The conference, organized by IIPT
(International Institute for Peace through Tourism) in
collaboration with Africa Travel Association (ATA) and
the Mpumalanga Tourism Authority (MTA), cosponsored by
the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Mpumalanga's
Department of Finance & Economic Affairs, follows the
success of the first three IIPT Global Conferences on
Peace Through Tourism, as well as the First Global Summit
on Peace Through Tourism in Amman in 2000. It is the
first of a series of regional conferences and symposia
leading up to the Second Global Summit taking place in
Geneva, Switzerland, October 14-17, 2002.
International Institute for Peace
Through Toursim: www.iipt.org
Africa Travel Association:
www.africa-ata.org
First African Conference on Peace
through Tourism: www.peace-conference.co.za
