A Ghanaian tourism consultant has urged African governments and private stakeholders to treat tourism as a continental development priority, arguing the sector holds the clearest pathway to achieving the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063 blueprint for the continent’s transformation.
Emmanuel Frimpong, Founding President of the Africa Tourism Research Network (ATRN) and Co-founder of the Africa Medical Tourism Council (AMTC), made the call in a commentary marking African Union Day on May 25. He argued that despite two decades of measurable progress in tourism across countries including Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt, the continent still captures a disproportionately small share of global tourist arrivals relative to its cultural and natural wealth.
Frimpong pointed to persistent structural barriers as the core problem. Restrictive visa regimes, poor intra-African air connectivity, high airfare costs, inadequate tourism infrastructure and weak coordination among African states continue to hold back a sector he described as both a labour engine and a diplomatic tool. He noted that many Africans find it cheaper and easier to travel outside the continent than to destinations within it, a reality he said undermines the spirit of Pan-African integration.
To close that gap, Frimpong called for accelerated implementation of visa-free and visa-on-arrival policies, stronger collaboration among African airlines to reduce route costs, and expanded investment in roads, airports, rail systems, convention centres and digital infrastructure. He also advocated for deeper public-private partnerships and greater institutional support for tourism education and research.
Beyond economics, the commentary situated tourism as a tool for gender empowerment and youth employment given Africa’s young population profile, as well as a mechanism for preserving indigenous languages, heritage sites, festivals and cultural traditions that remain underprotected across the continent.
Frimpong also drew on Ghana’s Year of Return as evidence that diaspora-focused cultural tourism can generate substantial economic returns while rebuilding continental identity. He pointed to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) as frameworks that must now translate into practical movement of people and not just trade in goods.
“The road to ‘The Africa We Want’ can be built through tourism,” Frimpong wrote, framing the sector not as a peripheral industry but as a strategic pillar worthy of dedicated political commitment at the highest levels of continental governance.
