GROWING WINGS FOR NEW DESTINATIONS

GROWING WINGS FOR NEW DESTINATIONS

Many avid Africa travellers know that long distance ground travel might technically ground your travel plans to many final destinations –Unless you are a backpacking intrepid traveller, volunteer, or a missionary etcetera, you may find it overtly adventurous.  Your best bet would be to go by air to at least an hour’s drive from your general destination where possible.  

Thanks to current thread of investments in air travel, this option may not be very far off after all!

According to the World Bank, there has been scores of air transport projects going on in Africa, more than any other region since 2012; these include modernization and building of new airports, and investment in aviation infrastructure.  The result of this trend will be an increase in passenger numbers by over a hundred million in less than a decade, ushering in Africa as a truly global tourism region.

As Air Travel in Africa continues to grow in leaps and bounds, international air traffic to and from the continent has seen a yearly rise of about 6 percent in the last decade and that figure is expected to improve within the next few years. 

Domestic traffic on its part is expected to grow at more than 12 percent, driven largely by an explosion of activity in Nigeria.

With by far the largest youth population and a growing middle class, the domestic travel market rise in Africa is increasingly motivated by the interest in intercultural and ecological diversity within the continent.  Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Mozambique, Angola, Kenya and Namibia are some of the sub saharan regional countries incentivising and contributing to this growth numbers in the sub- Sahara Africa.

Increasing inbound travel to more diverse locations in Africa (due largely to more airports and more capacity), shows there is much more than business travel on the minds of tourists- The United Nations World Tourism Organisation, UNWTO believes that many African destinations are becoming increasingly valuable to family vacationers and experiential travellers.

In recent years the numbers of ‘resort’ type hospitality and sports tourism is a pointer to the merits of air travel access, its increased capacity and infrastructure. In Nigeria for example, the Ibom resort provides resort type appurtenances such as massive open water and natural grasslands around which water sports and a golf course are built. Calabar also modelled its Obudu ranch to offer mountaineering activities and an international mountain race to add to her ecological haven status. 

These are all due in large part to the localization and the improving capacity of airports and aviation infrastructure making these destinations more accessible- this is one way travel and tourism can be affected by purposeful investment.

The impact of the numbers of new flights and new airports in the last few years has bolstered travel and tourism and is opening up new vistas for experiential travel.  Whilst the majority of motives for inbound African travel remain business, it is clear that there is a burgeoning experiential market that is emerging due to the air travel evolution.

Some of the confidence leading to this paradigm shift in air traffic development is the results of new investment in airports (and new runways) and its infrastructure. It has been committedly chaired by some African governments in recent years.  

The South African and Kenyan Airport authorities have invested hundreds of millions of US dollars each in building new terminals and upgrades. These projects are expected to increase passenger capacity by scores of millions. Nigeria has also begun to invest in more airports, airport infrastructure (and pilot training initiatives) to improve access and service delivery; existing airports are also being revamped. 

To keep up with this growth, Africa certainly needs billions of dollars yearly for new investments in the air travel industry for years to come; it also needs it to eventually optimise and even maximise facilities at the currently declining routes.

Many African countries have built their economies around the travel and tourism industry; And because of that, it has remained a priority to develop their air transport infrastructure and they continue to do so. The potential of air transport investment beyond the need for efficiency and the increase in the capacity to cater for growth, lie in the new connections and new access to destinations.   For whatever purpose it is intended, it is clear that more access means easy admission to final destination for business and leisure. 

Air transport remains a real challenge in Africa-it is made even worse due to inadequate and often the absence of any viable alternatives.  Gazing into the future, your airline tickets may probably remain a favourable ‘pass’ that gets us close enough to experience newer travel wonders, at least for most inbound travellers!