Last week, a group of tourism promoters from Europe were in Cameroon to see what the country has to offer. As we can imagine, there was more than enough to see. After all, Cameroon is Africa in miniature! But since tourists cannot spend all their time wandering from site to site, a close attention was also paid to where the visitors could take a bite and lay their heads.

And this is exactly what made the visitors to chuckle. Difficult to get a room that is not infested with "animals" in most parts of the country. True, we are in the jungle and coming face to face with an animal is not uncommon in some localities. But any tourist willing to give himself a treat will certainly feel uncomfortable sharing his room with cockroaches or playing hide and seek with rats at bed time. Don't even talk about hygiene. The white-turned-brown colours of some beddings and stench from the toilets says it all!

It is not enough to flood the entrances of our little B and Bs with Stars when we have nothing to show in terms of services, infrastructure, etc. This hotel starring stuff has been completely cameroonised! Those who have had the luxury of spending nights in some European, Asian and America hotels will bare me witness. We must upgrade our standards, else we remain local and our tourist industry will suffer.