Lai Mohammed Canvasses Seamless African Air Connectivity

TRAVEL and TOURISM

Justina Uzo

Tourism stakeholders have long sought for seamless travel across the West African sub-region. Many complain that travel within the region is not only stressful but it’s also expensive.

The issue was recently in the front burner again at the 65th Meeting of the UNWTO-CAF in Arusha, Tanzania.

Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who spoke at the event, said effective air connectivity within Africa is key to unlocking the potentials of tourism in the continent.

He urged African ministers of Tourism to co-operate and collaborate with their African ministers of aviation to achieve Single African Air Transport Market.

Mohammed who supervises Nigerian Tourism, in a statement signed by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi, harped on the way forward focusing on air travels.

‘’There is no doubt that air transportation is pivotal for any international tourism development (more so in Africa), owing to the need for tourists to move to the product destination. Air travels continue to be the dominant mode of travel for international tourists, accounting for over 50 per cent of all international arrivals,” the minister said.

Mohammed also stressed that growing air transportation into and within the African region, including effective connectivity through the full implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision on a Single African Air Transport Market, are important to unlocking Africa’s tourism potential.

Reeling out statistics to back his assertion, the minister, who also listed unfavourable visa regimes, insecurity, high cost of air transport and low quality of tourism support services, among other factors hindering the growth of tourism in Africa.

He said Africa’s share of global international arrivals remains a paltry five per cent.

‘’The truth is that the performance of the region’s aviation industry, though improving, continues to lag behind that of the rest of the world, accounting for a dismal three per cent of the global air transport traffic. Of the 1,431 country pairs between the African Union countries, only 19 per cent had some form of significant direct service in 2019.

‘’As of 2019, only 35 per cent of the African routes were operated daily, and only 13 per cent were operated twice daily while many operated at less than daily frequency. Such services offer passengers very limited choices in terms of their journey timing and prevent passengers from obtaining a convenient itinerary.

 ‘’This negatively impacts productivity and ultimately has a cost implication. New routes and more frequencies, he said, will shorten flying time between many cities in Africa. For example, as of 2019 there was no regular direct service between the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The most convenient routing available then was via West Africa or Morocco. This could take between 9 and 15 hours while a direct service would take about two hours only,’’ he said.

 Mohammed said the liberalisation of Air Transport in Africa is so important as it will lead to an additional 145 country pairs that will receive direct service, boost tourism and also increase frequencies on existing routes by 27 per cent.

The 65th UNWTO-CAF Meeting 2022 was hosted by Tanzania from October 5 to 7. The forum focused on “Rebuilding Africa’s Tourism Resilience for Inclusive Socio-economic development.”