The 2010 World Cup and the "Obama effect" of a US president of African heritage has sparked a surge in interest in much of Africa as a tourist destination, industry experts say.
Speaking as Madrid hosted the annual FITUR tourism trade fair, one of the world's largest, they said the continent is slowly starting to fulfill its vast potential for tourism.
"There has been a shift in the way people look at Africa," said Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
"Compared to 10 years ago they've come a long, long way. Africa is now considered a very serious destination for travellers from the major generating markets."
In its annual World Tourism Barometer released last week, the Madrid-based UNWTO said Africa had "bucked the global trend" in 2009, with international tourist arrivals to the continent jumping 5.0 percent.
That compared to a slump of 4.0 percent in travel worldwide last year amid the economic crisis and the swine flu pandemic.
The World Cup football tournament, due to be hosted by South Africa in June and in which 32 nations are taking part, now looks set to help push the number of travellers to Africa even higher.
Nigel Vere Nicoll, the head of the Africa Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA), predicted the tournament's impact on tourism will be "enormous".
"The World Cup is certainly the most exciting thing to happen to Africa, not just southern Africa, all Africans are very proud that it's going to be there," he said.
"It will certainly bring the whole South African experience to a lot more people than knew about it before," he said in a telephone interview, noting the country's "great diversity of product".
Nicoll said his London-based organisation has been looking at programmes to encourage travellers to extend their South Africa visit into neighbouring countries, although with limited success.
"There's an initiative in Zambia, Zimbabwe but I'm not sure that it's actually going to work... We're not actually even sure of the profile of the people attending (the World Cup) and whether they have the extra finance to go on safari or wherever.
"So I think that the ripple effect isn't going to be as big as one hopes."
Nevertheless, Zimbabwe's tourism ministry said this month it was seeking 70 million dollars to cash in on the World Cup in its neighbour, five million of which will go to "advertise our tourist facilities to the outside world."
World Cup organising chief Danny Jordaan has said South Africa hopes the competition will help promote the country's tourism industry in new markets, especially in the Americas.
But the tourist industry in parts of Africa is also seeking to attract more US visitors in a very different way.
The 2008 election of President Barack Obama, whose father was an immigrant from Kenya, already appears to be encouraging African-Americans to trace their roots.
The "Obama effect" has helped bring the number of Americans visiting Kenya back to around what it was in 2007, before arrivals plummeted in the wake of the riots that followed disputed elections in December of that year, according to Murithi Ndegwa, managing director of the Kenya Tourist Board.
Nicoll was less convinced about the "Obama effect," calling it "hype."
But the World Travel Market Global Trends Report 2009 has predicted the US president "will have a positive impact on Africa tourism for years to come."
The Kenyans are now building a tourist industry around the hometown of Obama's father in the modest village of Nyangoma-Kogelo near the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, and which is a national heritage site.
And it's not just African-Americans who are coming to trace their roots, there's "a tremendous ripple effect in the entire US society," Ndegwa told AFP.
Last July, Obama and his family visited a former slave trading fort in the west African country of Ghana, which the country has now put firmly on its tourist map along with other historical sites.
"If you look at the figures of Ghana after they started to highlight these historical destinations, it's even tripled there," Rifai told AFP in a telephone interview.
Many African countries are also seeing a surge in arrivals from major emerging markets such India and China, which have cultural and trade links with the continent.
China's growing investment in Africa "is encouraging more Chinese to look at Africa in a different light, not just as an investment opportunity," said Rifai.
But the UNWTO chief cautioned that Africa's tourist gains must be viewed in terms of "the very modest volumes and traffic that it is starting with.
"Africa is still attracting about 5.0 to 5.5 percent of international tourism arrivals in the world," or about 48 million of the 880 million travellers around the world last year.
"So the potentials for growth in Africa are and will continue to be big until Africa really fills up the space that it deserves in terms of its share of the market," said Rifai.
Sapa-AFP
