The latest World Economic Forum’s (WEF) ‘Travel and Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024,’ has stated that the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region made the most substantial enhancement in TTDI performance since 2019.

Nigeria moved up marginally on the ranking from 113 to 112 with a positive +4.20 percentage change since 2019.

The TTDI’s report, which was published yesterday, by WEF in collaboration with the University of Surrey, covered 119 economies and measured the set of factors and policies that enabled the sustainable and resilient development of the Travel and Tourism (T&T) sector, which in turn contributed to the development of these countries’ economies.

The TTDI 2024 showed that tourism was back to its pre-pandemic levels, but cautioned that challenges remained as it reflected on “the T&T sector’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing and future challenges affecting the enabling conditions for its growth.”

It projected that T&T contributed $9.9 trillion to global GDP in 2023, which was nearly at pre-pandemic levels and revealed the need for stakeholder collaboration to harness the T&T sector’s transformative power.

According to WEF, “the TTDI is designed to provide context and facilitate multi stakeholder dialogue, enabling stakeholders to grasp emerging trends and risks in global T&T, guiding policy formulation, operational practices and investment strategies.”

The TTDI said: “Europe remains the highest-performing region in the TTDI, ranking above the global average on most pillars, with Asia-Pacific second, and sub-Saharan Africa the region showing the most improvement since 2019.”

It added: “Sub-Saharan Africa (Africa) has shown the most substantial enhancement in TTDI performance since 2019 (+2.1 per cent), with 16 out of the 19 regional economies covered by the index increasing their TTDI scores. The report stated that the sector’s potential to drive socioeconomic prosperity made it an essential tool for development.

“In 2024, the region had the highest score for T&T socioeconomic impact, with the T&T industry in Africa generating, on average, over 21 per cent more jobs for each direct position than the TTDI mean, and with an average of over 43 per cent of the sector workforce employed in segments that are considered relatively high wage,” it stated.

The report noted that Africa’s potential for T&T development was influenced by several factors, including its notable price competitiveness and natural resources for tourism.

However, it noted that, “considerable challenges still have to be overcome if the region is to produce favourable conditions for T&T growth.

“Regional policy makers and T&T stakeholders need to continue the recent progress in creating more supportive business environments, improving health and hygiene conditions, fostering higher-quality human resources and labour markets and advancing ICT infrastructure.”

According to the report, investment and policy directed at supporting inclusive working conditions, workers’ rights and education could help to make the region’s large and growing labour force more competitive and resilient.

It added that, “addressing widespread health, safety and security challenges will also help to encourage investment and make African destinations more attractive to foreign visitors.

“While many African governments’ ability to support the sector is limited due to resource constraints, with the region’s already low scores for prioritization of T&T (e.g. government T&T spending and data collection) falling even more since 2019 (-9.8 per cent), non-spending policies can be pursued.

“Encouragingly, African states have made unilateral and multilateral strides in policies that should encourage cross-border travel and trade (e.g. the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Free Movement of Persons Protocol and Single African Air Transport Market), and drive currently low levels of intra-regional connectivity.

For instance, on average, African countries covered by the TTDI have liberal visa requirements that could help to facilitate cross-border travel.

However, the implementation of many policies aimed at greater international openness has lagged, with the region scoring low for the number and degree of liberalisation of air service agreements.

“This can, in particular, make it more difficult for Africa’s already underdeveloped aviation sector to grow. Innovative funding solutions for air, ground and port infrastructure also need to be found to make destinations easier to access.

“Encouraging environmental sustainability to protect valuable tourism-generating nature assets, developing tourist service infrastructure and greater promotion and protection of cultural resources also need to be prioritised in the years to come,” the report added.

According to the report, South Africa, which ranked 55th, is the highest in the region and is home to its largest T&T economy.

Meanwhile, Mauritius (57th) and Ghana (106th) rank the highest in Eastern and Western Africa, with the former also being the region’s most T&T dependent economy in 2022. Côte d’Ivoire has shown the greatest improvement in TTDI score (+6.4 per cent, 116th to 114th).