RICERCA ITALIANA     

Tourism,community and local development in Africa.

Università degli Studi di Genova

Abstract

Within the problematic relationship between the North and the South of the world, this research aims at focusing on the opportunities of tourism as a factor of sustainable development in Africa. In fact, in market terms, Africa accounts globally only for 3.9% of visitors and for 2% of the tourism income, percentages, these ones, that are absolutely limited, and what’s more, with a strong concentration factor only in some countries: three Mediterranean countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco) and two sub-Saharan countries (Zimbabwe and South Africa). The possibilities of development of the continent, which are much promising, because of the variety, the singularity and the competitiveness of the real or potential tourism attractions available, could grow both with the increase of the tourism activity and with its territorial spreading. On these issues are based the reflections concerning the new typologies of tourism activity that, apart from economy in the strict sense of the term, refer to ethics, responsibility and sustainability. It’s necessary to understand which kind of tourism is possible to propose for the future non only for Africa in general, but also for the development of the African local communities, a source of income that must be local in the largest part. To this purpose, after considering some local systems, in the second phase of the programme joint multidisciplinary researches will be undertaken by all the RU, in order to draft, in synergy with local authorities and communities, suitable tourism protocols and in order to elaborate, in some pilot societies, models of sustainable tourism that could be repeatable in similar contexts. <<<

Principal Investigator

Luisa Faldini Università degli Studi di GENOVA

Research Objectives

This research programme aims at elaborating, through a specific path and in partnership with the institutions and the local communities of some African countries, models of sustainable tourism, suitable for the local context and capable of immediate utilization within projects of high, medium and low investment. This objective will be pursued through the following phases:
Phase 1:
On the basis of surveys carried out previously and concerning the whole African continent, geographical areas and thematic fields have been identified, on which the analysis and the fieldworks of the Research Units (RU) will be concentrated.
- Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) and Libya (RU of Genova, Pisa and Perugia);
- West Africa countries: Mali, Benin, Senegal (RU of Genova);
- East Africa countries: Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania (RU of Pisa and Perugia);
- South Africa countries: Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa (RU of Bologna).
The fieldworks carried out by the RU will be developed towards two thematic directions:
1) Evaluation and investigation of the local choices concerning tourism;
2) In areas that are not concerned by tourism, or marginal from a tourist point of view, collection of data aimed at elaborating, even for the poorest areas, a tourism model that can be ecologically bearable, with remarkable benefits for the local population, together with the lowest impact on environment.
In other words, it means that in the concerned areas, specific exemplary places will be chosen and opportunely compared at the end of the first phase, in order for the RU to elaborate operative guidelines aimed at defining specific models of sustainable tourism that will be utilised in the various areas, characterized by different needs (reconversion from mass tourism, élite-tourism, religious, pro-poor, cultural, naturalistic tourism etc.).
The RU will compare together the different experiences and will choose two or three places, among all the ones examined, located in different areas, where a joint research will be carried out. Anthropologists, geographers, historians will work together in a strictly interdisciplinary manner, in order to produce, in synergy with the local authorities and communities, an exemplary tourism model on one side, and through the work with the same interlocutors, on the other side, a protocol concerning tourism and its good practices, aimed at their concrete applicability.
The model of tourism elaborated will be then applied and promoted in cooperation both with the local authorities and with the NGOs and the local agencies. In this perspective the RU are working at laying down agreements and conventions with the NGOs and local institutions interested in tourism, in order to create an operative web supporting the local needs.
Tourism in fact, in its various aspects, can be an incomparable source of wealth for the African countries, whether it is conveniently managed and extended, in the most suitable ways, also in the poorest areas, still far from the international circuits.
Within these objectives of the RU, tourism will be then used, as a qualifying and productive factor, in the most suitable ways for the local contexts, in order to create models and concrete possibilities implementable by the local communities. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

From the Sixties the tourist industry has reached considerable dimensions, the number of international tourists has increased, making global travel a common phenomenon. The great economic potentialities of tourism, for both the countries in the South and the West, are evidenced by the extent of the sector and the great profits derived from the high number of tourists (Colombo 2005:8).
According to the forecasts made by The World Tourism Organization, the tourism industry will have an increase of hundred percent within 2020. While on the one hand, the economic sciences are able to elaborate strategies and forecast some of the possible outcomes of this growing phenomenon, on the other hand it is the task of the human sciences to analyse the impacts that a significant increase of tourism might have on the socio-cultural order of the host countries.
The development of tourism has resulted in significant economic transformations in the countries involved. However, the increase of wealth has not been homogenous. The differences in income between people involved in tourism and those who are not have increased, sharpening the economic gap between individuals as well as between countries. In addition to the economic changes, there are the social transformations, both positive and negative.
The negative effects of mass tourism are gradually being emphasised, in addition to its potentialities. Hence, there are opposite valuations on tourism which oscillate from considering the sector as a resource to criticising the industry for its lack of benefits for many destinations, in particular the countries in the South.
In parallel to the increase of mass tourism there is a growth of the demand and offer of the alternative typologies which differentiate from mainstream tourism for its sites, activities and motivations (Cohen 1979, 1988; Smith 1989).
From the Eighties there is an ongoing inversion of tendencies in the tourist industry, which has resulted in a more differentiated offer. Even though mass tourism seemed to have exhausted its potentialities of development, a new tendency has resulted in alternative forms of tourism.
So, the debate over considering international tourism an opportunity of development or rather a new form of exploitation of the developing countries is much controversial and certainly still open. Is tourism a chance for people to meet or a means to a devastating cultural colonisation? It’s remarkable that in the past years the word ‘tourism’ has been enriching with several adjectives that reveal a negative perception of this phenomenon by many people and a consequent need to improve its features. Following the development of that articulate philosophical movement which aims at improving the practice of tourism, it’s possible to notice a continuous alternation of adjectives like ethic, responsible, sustainable that are often used as mutual synonyms. The risk is to mix up two levels of perception and action which are not always coinciding: responsible and ethic appeal to the moral factor and consequently attain to a qualitative level, while the term sustainable refers to quantitative considerations. Theoretically, a contribution of synthesis is the first article of the Charter of Sustainable Tourism, drawn up in Lanzarote in 1995, which points out: “Tourism development shall be based on criteria of sustainability, which means that it must be ecologically bearable in the long term, as well as economically viable, and ethically and socially equitable for local communities. Sustainable development is a guided process which envisages global management of resources so as to ensure their viability, thus enabling our natural and cultural capital, including protected areas, to be preserved. As a powerful instrument of development, tourism can and should participate actively in the sustainable development strategy. A requirement of sound management of tourism is that the sustainability of the resources on which it depends must be guaranteed”. Sustainable tourism like sustainable development: this one seems to be the equation. On a first level of interpretation it could refer to a number of visitors and facilities that is sustainable by the ecosystem and by the host communities. Up to this level, at least from a theoretical point of view, the concordance seems wide. On another level of interpretation - a deeper one – the problems between tourism and sustainability re-appear with particular intensity: when we refer to the ways of involving local communities in the process of tourism valorisation of the different territories.
Some ethnographic case studies on sustainable tourism put emphasis on the fact that "sustainability" of tourism refers to, at least, three interdependent factors: the extent of the phenomenon; the equal distribution of the benefits; the use and renewability of the resources, meaning by "resource" environmental, socio-cultural and "immaterial" heritage (Boyer 2002; Simonicca 1997).
The issue of the impacts of tourism on host communities has always interested the anthropology of tourism.
In the first theoretical works of anthropology of tourism the positions were polarized between those who gave a very positive evaluation of the sector and those who considered tourism a form of exploitation, even a new form of "imperialism" (De Kadt 1979; Nash 1989). Currently, one tends to give priority to a contextual and situational analysis of tourism, not as the only cause, but as a
contributory cause in the social and economic transformations in local communities (Stronza 2001).
The debate among academics is still going on and questions on the impacts and potentialities of sustainable tourism as a positive alternative to mainstream tourism are being discussed in a number of papers. While some authors consider mainstream tourism of great economic importance for many countries in the less developed world, due to the fact that it brings employment and foreign exchange (Mathieson et al 1993; Oppermann et al 1997), others, on the contrary, argue that the benefits of the industry are fewer than the costs, which are necessarily increasing with the growth in the number of tourists (France 1997; Smith 1997). Moreover, it is observed that only a small percentage of the revenues in the mainstream tourism remains in the host countries (Honey 1999; France 1997; Cater and Goodall 1997). According to this view, some governments of countries in the South and development agencies regard ecotourism a tool to retain a greater part of the profit and to promote a sustainable development. In addition, it is argued that local communities can be empowered through ecotourism (Scheyvens 2002).
The case is particularly controversial with reference to Africa, where there is a wide range of situations concerning tourism activities and where we can find many of the poorest countries of the world. Here it’s particularly worthwhile not only asking “tourism: yes or no?”, but “which tourism?”. Although characterized by different appearances and various philosophical perspectives, the tourism models proposed carry with themselves a heavy load of contradictions and perhaps it’s impossible to imagine any kind of tourism activity development without a corresponding reduction of the quality and/or the quantity of the natural resources, without a change in the relationships among the people of the communities and without the elaboration of a new mutual imaginary concerning natives and tourists. Moreover, in some cases, tourism can be sometimes a source of income, often significant for the local economy.
The national ad international scientific basis of the Unit coincides largely with the national research project, focusing, in particular, on the potentials of new typologies of tourist development experimented in several areas of southern Africa, namely the community-based tourism (CBT) and the pro-poor tourism (PPT).
The African continent hosts a great variety of original tourist resources, both natural and cultural, with a promising utilisation potential. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the African riches remains unused: Africa belongs to the periphery of the world tourist regions, and is able to attract only 4% of all the global tourist market and 2% of the world tourist revenues (WTO, 2002). The tourist arrivals are a monopoly of a very limited area: the Mediterranean Africa (35% of all African arrivals) and the Southern Africa (30%) alone receive nearly two thirds of all the continent arrivals, while the Eastern Africa receives 23%, the Western Africa 10% and the Central Africa only 3%.
Several are the variables that have imposed to the continent its marginal role in the world tourism market, and most of them are connected to underdevelopment. The political instability is surely one of the main negative issues: recurrent crisis, coup d’etats, civil wars have neglected to many counties the possibility of developing tourism. Moreover, Africa retains several other weaknesses: difficult accessibility, lacking infrastructures and services, serious endemic diseases (malaria and AIDS), widespread corruption and delinquency, incapacity to face the competition of other destinations.
Due to poverty, many countries have great difficulties in planning their tourist development and cannot but entrust it to international tour operators. This, nonetheless, imposes to poor countries strong leakages due to the necessity of buying abroad, in wealthier countries, goods and services for tourists.
Under these conditions, the actual models of tourist management in Africa don’t seem to be able to alleviate poverty and promote local development. The resident communities are often excluded from international tourism and receive only a minimal part of the profits. A recent research (Sibanda and Omwega, 1996) shows that in Kenya only 1% of all international tourist revenues reaches the local communities.
It thus appears evident the necessity to investigate more deeply into the new tourist development paradigms and forms, aimed at realising more and more tourist activities capable of granting a sustainable development to the local communities (Cencini, 2004).
At the international level, it is agreed that tourism may well become a valid tool for local development and poverty reduction, once it arrives to be managed sustainably. The strategies of such sustainable approach to tourism are presently being experimented in some areas of the continent and are based on the participation of all the local stakeholders in the process of decision-making (CBT) or on policies aiming at poverty reduction (PPT) (Ashley C., Boyd C., Goodwin H., 2000).
CBT and PPT are not just new tourist sectors, but new modes to propose traditional tourist products based on natural or cultural resources. Both CBT and PPT are long-term investments: they aspire not just to realise short term subsistence objectives- that have to be included, though - but mainly to create and satisfy future ones (Ashley, Roe, Goodwin, 2001).
Among the benefits of such approaches it is worth to remember new economic and entrepreneurial opportunities, more equity in the access to natural resources, reduction of negative impacts such as the loss of land, the exclusion from protected areas and their resources, social disgregation, etc.
The theorisation of CBT and PPT has its origin in the concept of sustainability defined in Rio in 1992 and, in particular, of tourist sustainability, defined by the Lanzarote Charter in 1995.
Ecotourism, sustainable tourism and community conservation may well be included within the strategies of PPT because, even if they have different aims, their impact on poverty reduction may be quite important (Hulme, Murphree, 2001).
Ecotourism initiatives may generate net benefits for the poor but are usually environment-focused (Ceballos Lascurain, 1996). At the same time the conservative approach promotes greater equity in the distribution of local revenues as a conservation incentive, and alternative uses of the territory, while PPT has as its main objective the distribution of net benefits to the poor. The environmental issues are but a part of it. CBT initiatives are aimed, finally, at raising the degree of community participation to tourism, in order to promote greater equity in the access to resources and to both economic and non-economic benefits.
Such initiatives are complementary strategies to PPT, but the main aim of this last is to go further community participation, to reach in particular the poor, at all administrative level. Often, in fact, participatory processes, basis of CBT, are not capable of reaching equity in the access to resources and revenues, favouring the local elites. <<<