Tourism Begins to Bounce Back in Africa

Signs of life are beginning to show in the travel industry as visitor numbers to destinations begin to rise.

ForwardKeys research showed that a return to normalcy began in Central America and the Caribbean in 2021 driven by pent-up demand from U.S. travelers and Europeans.

Now, FowardKeys has found that hunger has a new focus: Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. outbound market could aid recovery in the fragile tourism sector in Africa, according to ForwardKeys.

The company found that the volume of flight searches from the U.S. to South Africa has grown by 2 percent from January to February 2022. The overall volume of flight searches to South Africa for the same period is up by 30 percent.

However, interest needs to be converted into bookings in order to constitute a recovery.

International arrivals into Africa and the Middle East confirm that intent to visit is translating into arriving tourists.

In the second quarter of this year, international arrivals to Africa are at -33 percent compared to 2019 levels, above the total international outbound average of -45 percent and just behind the leading recovery region, the Americas (-27 percent).