United Kingdom (Commonwealth Union)_ During the United Nations World Tourism Organization Regional Commission for Africa meeting in Mauritius, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, underscored the critical need for enhanced collaboration to establish a resilient tourism sector that benefits people, prosperity, and the planet. In her address to over 100 senior officials, including the Prime Minister of Mauritius, the Hon Pravind Jugnauth, and African ministers responsible for tourism, she emphasized the intricate vulnerability of the tourism industry and the imperative for collective action to address its challenges.
The meeting took place amidst the gradual recovery of the global tourism industry, which had suffered a significant blow from the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the industry witnessed a severe setback, with 1.1 billion fewer international tourist arrivals and the loss of more than 100 million jobs across the world. Although there was a strong recovery in 2022, bringing figures close to two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels, the world remains constrained by a web of crises spanning economic, environmental, and security systems, all of which pose serious threats to the tourism industry. The Secretary-General said, “Despite a strong recovery in 2022, to almost two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels, the world today is tightly bound by a tangled knot of crises spanning global economic, environmental, and security systems, which pose a series of threats to the tourism sector.”
The Secretary-General particularly highlighted the disproportionate impact on small island developing states (SIDS), which mainly depend on tourism. Notably, SIDS witnessed a 9 percent drop in their gross domestic product in 2020, significantly higher than the global average of 3.4 percent. With two-thirds of the small island developing states in the world being Commonwealth member states, Secretary-General Scotland highlighted that the organization will prioritize sustainable tourism. She emphasized the urgency of devising a plan to deliver an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient tourism sector, given its crucial role in the economies of African countries and beyond.
According to Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, the meeting was a major opportunity to foster cooperation and invite countries to collaborate on innovative legal and financial solutions for the tourism sector. She emphasized that the knowledge, ideas, innovation, and technology required for developing and delivering these solutions already exist within the Commonwealth. What is needed is leadership and a shared commitment to working together, rather than doing it alone.
Furthermore, Secretary-General Scotland was confident in Commonwealth Africa’s capacity to demonstrate such leadership and pave the way for a sustainable and resilient tourism industry on the continent. To support this endeavor, she explained how the Commonwealth’s initiatives could help countries address tourism challenges through knowledge sharing, data-sharing, and capacity-building. She also highlighted the ‘Their Future, Our Action’ project, which focused on improving the economic resilience of small states, and two tools created under this project that are capable of supporting the efforts of African countries.
The first tool, the ‘Common Pool Asset Structuring Strategy,’ consolidates finance applications into country-wide opportunities, while the second tool, the Political-Economic Resilience Index, provides credible data on the economic and vulnerability levels of small states, making them more attractive for inward investments. She added that the Commonwealth’s current efforts for the reform of global financing regulations to make development and climate finance more accessible to small states, allowing them to invest more in sustainable development, climate action, and tourism resilience, supported this work.
During the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Jugnauth acknowledged the global tourism industry’s progress towards recovery and stressed the need for collaborative efforts to build on this success and address future challenges. The Regional Meeting centered on the theme ‘Rethinking Tourism in Africa,’ offering ministers and senior officials from the continent a platform to exchange knowledge, ideas, and good practices for establishing a resilient tourism sector.
