Preston: Africa Is Safe for Tourists

The Director of Vamos Travel Africa, a destination management company based in South Africa, Geniene Preston, recently discussed on Channel Africa issues of multi-city travel in Africa, how visa restrictions affect travels within Africa, among others. Charles Ajunwa brings excerpts:

Tell us about the East African tour operators’ visit to South Africa? 

We’ve just had a very successful week having East African tour operators join us in South Africa to come and promote Africa, especially East Africa, to South Africans both corporates, MICE and tour operators. It was nice for them to come and experience South Africa, because I think you only really experience a country when you visit it.

What are the restrictions we face travelling in Africa?

When I went to visit Uganda for the first time, I was very nervous. I’m 64. I had never had a yellow fever injection. All those good things and had all of that done beforehand as I arrived in Uganda. I think I was blown away by the friendliness of even their customs guys. Customs guys are generally very stern. In Uganda, they greeted me with smiles. I travel with an Irish passport and they said to me, you are so welcome and you realise you don’t need a visa, so you must come back often.

My husband, however, travels on a South African passport and that is challenging, especially in Africa. When we travel internationally, when we hand in his passport for a visa, they automatically issue his free of charge due to my Irish Passport. African countries don’t accept that. We need to start to look at an African visa, similar to that of a European visa. Issues we face as Africans travelling within Africa, in Europe, once you have a European Union passport, you can pretty much travel freely and they need to look at that in Africa because one of the things that stop us from visiting places in Africa is the enormous cost and time spent on getting visas.

There are inroads now into that concept and they have brought out an East African visa, which allows you to travel throughout East Africa for US$150 for 90 days.  You can now freely visit Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania. 

And I think we often travel through Europe. For instance, my son has just been travelling around the world and he travelled extensively, but they travel so easily in Europe. They have no transport issues. One of the drawbacks we’ve had in Africa is transport. But Uganda Airlines is now making a concentrated effort to visit more venues. So is Ethiopian air. We, instead of before, when my husband was in the mines, he had to go up and down. 

You first had to go up to Tanzania, come down to South Africa, then go back up to other countries. You couldn’t travel from left to right, you only travelled up and down. But those two airlines have now made significant inroads into more destinations within Africa, as well as destinations such as London. Using Airlines that stopover in Africa makes a big difference to those either returning to Africa permanently or visiting friends and family

Most South Africans who live overseas come home. Believe it or not, they either come home permanently, which is so awesome, or they come and visit. So now those airlines have made it possible for them to stop in Uganda for a week, visit Uganda, visit Kenya, and visit those areas before coming home. Because once you’re home, there’s a flurry of visits to all your family and friends and you don’t really get a holiday. 

Now they’re allowing people to stop in Ethiopia. It allows you to stop in Addis Ababa and visit and actually see the countries that are within Africa. And for once, we’re a safe continent. The wars are going on everywhere else. Africa is safe. So now you can safely travel through Africa. 

Offering products in African currencies such as ZAR instead of US Dollars. 

That’s changing. I’m happy to say that tour companies are mostly now encouraged to offer products in the country currency in which they are making the offer. What they will now start to do is offer us products not only in our currency, but also in an affordable range. I think Africans, because African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, are used to selling to Europeans, to the USA, the UK, where the currencies are stronger, they are being sustained on a higher margin.

The international market loves to come and stay in luxury lodges. However, as Africans, we just want to go and stay in somewhere that’s pretty, that’s got a nice bathroom, that’s clean, that’s just, well, affordable. Whereas before visiting the Gorillas in Uganda or the Serengeti was probably, not only on your bucket list, but generally unaffordable.

Most of us couldn’t do that. Now, what they’re saying is if you’re from Africa, there is an African rate and we’re going to encourage Africans, normal, regular travellers within the African continent to start visiting Africa because we’ve got beautiful affordable lodges in every country.  There are homestays with a company like Freebird which is a UK-based company, that is encouraging people over 50 years to travel. Retirees of all income groups can stay in homestays or expensive lodges. 

In the whole of Africa, we have bush, beaches and mountains. But each country has its own beauty and its own environments to enjoy and to share. Each one is unique in its events, its selling points, and its people.

And the bird life is incredible in Africa. If anyone’s a birder, that area has more birds than anywhere else in the world.  So why not stay on the continent? Why not be a tour operator or travel agent that encourages travel into Africa?

Tell us about how you and your team are creating a series of tourism talks where various parties are invited to address groups and you do things such as breakfast and encouragement of all kinds and introducing Africans to African Travel through the eyes of ministers, stakeholders, and other parties?

What we do is we start by inviting ministers who’ve retired, such as Alain Saint Ange. He’s a retired minister of Seychelles. He talks about Peace, Prosperity, and Productivity. He also talks about Seychelles and why we should visit and what they have and what we have in our country. We then Ministers of tourism, whether active or retired, and we invite them to South Africa and thereafter to travel through Africa.  We get what we want to be able to get on a bus. I don’t want people to fly over our countries because then they miss the people, the environment and so much more.

I think one of the saddest things is we don’t encourage visitors to drive. 

We are going to talk to people along the way, schools and universities, and say, you know what, instead of backpacking through Europe, why don’t you backpack through Africa? Encouraging local corporates, people that normally send incentive trips to the U. S. A., to Disney World, let’s use Africa, let’s keep this continent going. And then they are allowed to then go back to their country and we get another person from tourism to then extend their trip for another couple of cities. So that we have a mix of Tourism ministers joining and leaving the group. As we travel through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and much more, they then get to see the real people and those who want to travel who might not have considered it before.