Indefatigable tourism amazon and president, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mrs. Susan Akporiaye, knew deep down that visiting South Africa with NANTA members, inclusive the executive leadership, would change the experiences and business orientation for Nigeria’s biggest travel business operators. Selfless and passionately tourism-driven, Mrs. Akporiaye woke up each day of the past 11 days in South Africa unresting, traversing the vast ridges, valleys and hills of unarguably Africa’s best tourism destination.
No doubt, she warms to this reality and values of tourism deliberately made possible by a country and people willing and ever strong to share the richness of its diverse culture and liberation history.
To me, Mrs. Akporiaye is an enigma, and you don’t need to agree with me, but her efforts to lead the best of her team, her first-eleven, unfazed by who they were but nudged into what South Africa Tourism has been transformed to just after the pandemic, certainly sits well with me.
For 11 days and nights in South Africa, Mrs. Akporiaye, would call me aside for a review, a new direction and opportunities provided by the people of Madiba’s nation, and one wonders in appreciation and acceptation that the pet dream tourism project she initiated while in Nigeria during the pandemic, urging African airlines to forge a collaboration to connect African countries to grow intra-African tourism, aligned with the iconic South Africa Tourism response.
Unconsciously, maybe nudged to full valuation of personal expectation of the best for African tourism, one woke up each morning and sang, “I can see clearly now,” an iconic song made by Johnny Nash. I was not his fan but his message in that hit track reflects the story of South Africa. It came from the inner recesses of my mind, colours the natural and cultural tourism revival of the South Africa Tourism
Ibiwari Uloma Kemabonta, NANTA’s vice-president, Abuja zone, loves flowers and South Africa gave her so much to think, to lust about but that is not what I want to share with you. At Capital Zimbali, a surrealistic ecotourism resort dotting the lush Indian Ocean waterfront of northern Durban, the reality and clarity of the South African tourism message opened my eyes.
Three days at its iconic multi-African tourism collaboration, Indaba, a tourism canopy with 55 countries in post-COVID-19 attendance and 7.5 million rands, pumped into the economy, no doubt, one began to believe the brightness of tomorrow’s economy built not around gem resources sector but on wildlife, marine ecosystems , nightlife, culture and tradition.
From the window of Room 2005, facing the long stretch of bluish Indian Ocean, down the north coast of Durban, Johnny Nash spoke to me and his song became my international tourism anthem.
Maybe at this juncture it would be pertinent to share the lyrics of Johnny Nash’s evergreen and award-winning track with you. After all, South African tourism is about sharing Africa, the best of us. Johnny Nash song, just like Miriam Makeba’s “Pata pata” pop song, speaks to us about the richness of music genres, even Nash though is American but proudly black. South Africa’s music is another story, a tradition, deeply attractive to global tourism and political advocacy, in which Makeba, undoubtedly, was chief evangelist.
Let’s sing Nash together, google it, if you must, and dance:
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone/I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind/It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright, sunshine day
I can make it now the pain is gone/All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for/It is gonna be a bright, bright, bright (bright) sunshining day.”
Got the drift? Now sing!
From Kwazulu Natal province to Jo’burg, the enigmatic response of the people, the global tourism reawakening agenda, African tourism consciousness and fiercely loyal attention to incubate fellow Africans to love Africa, lifted the dark clouds that held me blind to what is culturally deep about the continent.
Indeed, listening to Lindiwe Sisulu, South Africa’ s Tourism Minister, marshal out plans post-COVID pandemic, an obstacle that locked down South Africa avant garde tourism offerings and the world of travel in general, made me to admit that “it’s gonna be a bright, a sun-shiny day” for South Africa Tourism.
Though the flooding of Durban can’t be forgotten easily but it is a “pain,” though regrettable but not a “bad feeling” that can stop the tourism rainbow of the South Africa, glowingly seen and appreciated by the continent, which progressively adopted South Africa as the continent’s must-visit destination.
In the past four years before COVID unsettled the brightness of South Africa Tourism, 86 per cent of visitors into South Africa, were Africans. The world indeed counts for South Africa, but Africa is the root and pillar of the new South African tourism future. Now, one wonders at the denial of some Africans at the truth of tourism tomorrow carefully nutured by South Africa. Nigeria, significantly the West Coast of Africa, must deliberately have a buy-in to this brightness of hope. So much to learn about South Africa and about Africa.
This clearly makes us to see the future of tourism collaboration in Africa.
Let us hear Sisulu again: “The goal is simple, albeit daunting under the circumstances; the aim is to catapult South Africa’s tourism sector to the forefront of the country’s economic recovery effort and position South Africa as a safe and secure destination.”
