Africa: ‘Tourism has been painted white on the continent’

By Caroline Kimeu

When Ugandans Maureen Agena and Edward Echwalu arrived at the Lesotho border during their five-month road trip across east and southern Africa, the immigration officer did a double-take. “I’ve been at this post for eight years and no Ugandan has ever crossed through,” the official told the pair, as she fumbled through her records to see if travelers from the east African country could get into the country visa-free.

“For most of the places that we have been to, that has been the comment,” the couple tweeted, as they chronicled their trip on social media.

High costs and visa restrictions have historically made it harder for Africans to travel the continent, compared with Europeans or North Americans. There is little data on the number of people making such journeys through countries, but leisure and safari tourism in Africa is still largely dominated by western travelers.

Agena and Echwalu are among the limited but growing number of Africans embarking on longer-term leisure travel within the continent. Some indications – such as a growing African middle class, and increased intra-African trade – suggest that the number of people travelling for business and leisure is likely to rise in the coming years.

It took the couple, who describe themselves as lower-middle class, several years to save the nearly £20,000 (US$26,200) they needed for the 22,000 kilometer (13,700-mile) journey through a dozen countries: Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola.