East African Business Week (Kampala)
6 October 2008
editorial
This week, all roads lead to South Korea's second largest city Busan. The city is host to the World Tourism Investment Summit that starts today and ends on Thursday.
The summit is hosted by the Busan Metropolitan Government and co-organized with the Tourism Promotion Organization for Asia-Pacific Cities (TPO).
Others are the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Jordan, Bermuda and Tanzania, among others.
This is the third summit of its kind. The first was held in Nanjing in China in 2005. The second summit was held in Beijing in 2007.
The government of Tanzania has been a major player in the previous summits. Presdent Jakaya kikwete was Summit patron in last year's meet although he did not attend in person.
The rapid growth of world tourism over the past two decades has generated unprecedented investment initiatives and collaboration by government leaders, investors and related stakeholders.
For the East African Community (EAC), tourism has formed the bulk of the region's forex earning estimated at over US$3 billion per year and employing, over 11% of the population.
Western and Asian countries discovered that tourism was a great earner for their countries as envisaged in their receipts.
The World Tourism Organisation says that in 2007, the US earned $85.7 billion, followed by Spain $51billion, France $50billion, Italy $38.1 billion, China $33.9 billion, United Kingdom $33.7 billion, Germany $32.8 billion, Australia $17.8 billion, Turkey $16.9 billion and Austria $16.7 billion respectively.
It is important that these figures can be garnered here in East Africa if governments and the private sector collaborate to make the sector worth while.
Tourists spend on food in restaurants, car rentals, hotel stays, entertainment and souvenirs, for example.
It is important that at the Busan summit, the African delegates can learn as many startegies as possible.
The Middle East is a recent entrant into the tourism market.
Tourism growth must be pursued with increasing emphasis on ethics, local community involvement as well as paying attention to the environment.
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