Urban tourism in African cities may be a relatively new concept that has not yet gained widespread recognition. According to available information, “Urban tourism in African cities can be a way to experience the urban life of the region, but it faces some challenges. Among the challenges are unplanned urban growth and poor governance of the sustainable tourism policy development initiative.” Tourism is not only about culture. It is also about identity, tradition, and history. In this sense, urban tourism in Africa also has positive features because “cities offer the advantage of allowing diverse tourist attractions to be visited in specific locations without the need to travel long distances.”
Urban tourism has, of course, diverse opportunities and potentials for visitors, both local and expatriates. According to available information, there are different activities carried out by city tourists, among them the visit to buildings within a city such as museums and art galleries, religious temples, skyscrapers, and buildings with some historical interests, monuments and memorials, and cemeteries. On the other hand, urban tourism destinations offer a broad and heterogeneous range of cultural, architectural, technological, social, and natural experiences and products for leisure and business.
Africa’s potential for tourism development is huge indeed. This is a continent whose natural, cultural, and historical resources still remain largely untouched. What is unsettling is that tourism is still given marginal importance in the development strategies of many African countries. The theory and practice of industry-led economic development strategy is still the dominant thinking in the minds of African planners and policymakers. While tourism is a safer, less capital-intensive, and high-return industry, priority is often given to big industrial project development, which is claiming resources that could be used for the tourism sector that are cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and a source of hard currency.
Africa’s tourism potential is not only confined to historical places, ancient relics, churches, mosques, and other heritages that often attract the attention of foreign tourists in particular. Many African countries are managing their tourism in the same old way, giving top priority to the same old destinations. What the sector lacks is imagination, diversification, and creativity, as a result of which the sector has become long stagnant while modernization has never been on top of the agenda of tourism management, exploration, and development.
Let us take one example to make this point. Tourism gurus across the continent may not be aware of the vast potentials African cities offer for developing and exploiting what we may call urban tourism. They are still fixated on the same old remotely located destinations that do not need modernization or creatively so that they could grow in such a way as to promote diversification and attraction. The failure to develop urban tourism is one of the features of this retardation in tourism development. As indicated above, cities as urban centers are tourist destinations that have attractive attributes for tourists such as museums, cultural monuments, cultural institutions, sports complexes, areas of historical architecture, events, etc.
Urban tourism in Africa is also suffering from lack of imagination, creativity and invention so to say. African cities are largely endowed with the traditional cultural and social practices of rural immigrants who come to the cities together with their lifestyles, preferences, food habits and beverage preferences. More developed countries have already developed what they call, ‘culinary tourism”, which is also known as food tourism, which is a type of travel where the main focus is on experiencing the food and drink of a region or a country. It can involve guided tours or independent exploration and can include agricultural tourism experiences. With a little imagination, virtually all African urban centers have the potentials to develop their specific culinary tourism inputs.
In recent article for this newspaper, I wrote that culinary tourism or food tourism and sometimes called gastronomy tourism is perhaps the least known or least practiced type of tourism. Culinary tourism is defined as “the exploration of food as the purpose of tourism. It is considered a vital component of the tourism experience dining out is common among tourists and “food is believed to rank alongside climate, accommodation and scenery in importance to tourists.” Culinary tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon in the tourism business which was only launched as recently as 2001.
Culinary tourism is almost unknown or so far neglected in Ethiopia although foreign tourists are usually appreciative of Ethiopia’s cultural heritages some of which are globally known and appreciated as many of them are registered as world heritage sites and practices. Culinary tourism is considered “a subset of cultural tourism” because cuisine is a manifestation of culture and therefore relatively easier to be embraced and practiced as it is part and parcel of cultural tourism and that Ethiopia has a high standing in international cultural tourism.
Culinary tourism should not however be regarded simply tourists coming to a country to explore the taste, color, composition or preparation of foods that they never tasted. On the contrary, food tourism is a more diverse, extensive and more structured activity. The contrary, “Food tourism includes activities such as taking cooking classes, going on food or drink tours, attending food and drink festivals, participating in specially dining experiences shopping at specialty retail spaces, and visiting farms, markets and producers.”
Food tourism is also a very important component of tourism in general, and its economic turnover is also considerable compared to the other sectors of tourism. According to the World Food Travel Association, food and beverage expenses account for 15% to 35% of all tourism spending, depending on the affordability of the destination. “There are many food tourism benefits including more visitors, more sales, more media attention, increased tax revenue and greater community pride.”
Ethiopia’s diverse food cultures obviously provide opportunities to explore culinary tourism as a serious business venture not only for its annual turnover but also for its potential for creating job opportunities for thousands of young people who can take the business diversity of tourism to a new level.
Ethiopia’s food culture is fast changing in ways that can be exploited as a new branch of tourism. Not only that. The diversity of Ethiopia’s food culture has always been appreciated by foreign tourists who are often fascinated by the varieties and tastes of the foods in different parts of the country. We can even say that Ethiopia is not having only more than eighty different ethnic groups living in different climatic and geographic zones that have allowed them to generate amazingly varied foods and drinks. They are also varied in terms of the seasons specific food are more popular than others during fasting seasons.
If culinary tourism is such a big deal with potential attractions and as tourism diversification, why not try “beverage tourism” with particular reference to the beverage specialties of the country in general and the urban centers in particular? There is actually a new coffee drinking culture that is gaining prominence in most urban areas of Ethiopia, where the concept of “Nu buna tetu,” or “come and drink coffee,” has become rampant and increasingly attracting the attention of the public. Moreover, Ethiopia is the origin of coffee and one of the largest coffee exporters in Africa. The coffee drinking and coffee serving culture in Ethiopia is as diverse as the number of ethnic groups. There are more than eighty ethnic groups in the country, and the coffee culture of these groups is varied depending on their history, traditions, preferences, and other factors.
With a little imagination, we can perhaps develop the local coffee shops into big coffee drinking centers in many cities. Thus, the capital Addis Ababa can serve as a showcase of the country’s coffee cultures by constructing a permanent coffee exhibition and marketing and consumption centers, especially catering for local and foreign tourists in particular. These centers can be built at strategic places in the capital that are often frequented by tourists. There is also the possibility of organizing annual “coffee festivals” for tourists who will have the opportunity to sip many coffee varieties and enjoy the coffee ceremonies that go with them.
China is not a well-known coffee producing country, but the Chinese often organize coffee festivals for local coffee lovers as a strategy of coffee marketing promotion. The Japanese have their famous tea-drinking ceremonies that they have developed for centuries and have now become cultural fixtures of the Japanese people. I am not sure whether they organize annual tea drinking or tasting ceremonies. Africans are endowed with a variety of popular beverages specific to their cultures with the potential to develop them into large-scale annual events both to popularize their cultures and promote business interest among visitors. Urban tourism is thus a broader concept that is still awaiting serious exploration and diversification. Who is going to take the initiative in this particular area? I have no answer.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald November 3/2024
