WTO wants Africa's tourism potentials exploited

Africa should work out a strategy to exploit its rich and diverse tourism resources in order to benefit from the increasing "lucrative" income that global tourism is projected to generate in the next 20 years, a senior executive of the World Tourism Organization said Monday.

Africa attracted only 4 percent of the number of world tourists at present, which is expected to increase to 27 million world-wide by 2020, David de Villiers, the organization's deputy secretary general, told the 25th annual congress of the Africa Travel Association in Addis Ababa.

He said the forecast would generate two trillion US dollars in 20 years.

De Villiers noted that the number of tourists visiting Africa increased by 9 percent in 1999, while that of the rest of the world registered a 2-percent growth.

To keep the pace of growth in recent years, African countries must modernize tourist facilities that already exist and build new ones to attract more visitors, he suggested.

The six-day meeting will review association's activities during the past 25 years and work out strategies for the future direction tourism in Africa.

Tour operators in the US established the association in 1975, with New York City as its headquarters, to promote Africa's tourist attractions to the travel industry in North America.

Its present membership is more than 600 tour operators, travel agents and hotel chains in the US as well as national tourist office and airlines in 30 African countries.