Overview of the African tourism market v6

AFRICANTOURISMMARKET.COM
By Ben Omoakin Oguntala
ben.oguntala@Africantourismmarket.com
Twitter: @afrotourism

Unleashing Africa’s
tourism potential
by converting
African natural
assets into tourism
markets.

www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.com

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2
High level overview ................................................................................................................................. 3
Our business overview ............................................................................................................................ 4
Creating opportunities from natural assets in Africa? ............................................................................ 5
African Diaspora with interest in developing Tourism in Africa ............................................................. 6
Suppliers with products and services for the tourism sector ................................................................. 7
Benefits to African Tourism Boards ........................................................................................................ 8
Benefits to International suppliers ......................................................................................................... 9
Mapping supplier solutions to tourism opportunities in Africa............................................................ 10
Addressing youth unemployment in Africa .......................................................................................... 11
How it works ......................................................................................................................................... 13
About us ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Getting started ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Contact us ............................................................................................................................................. 15

1


Introduction
Africa is full of natural assets that are capable of being converted into Tourism
markets and can be used to generate commerce at micro economic levels across
Africa. Africa’s history, culture, landscape, language and Art are natural assets that
are capable of being converted into Tourism markets and these are indiscriminately
available to every community in Africa.
There are two sectors that Africa performs remarkably well in, in relation to
international acceptance; they are Tourism and the Arts. Exhibition at the World
Travel Market 2013 in London showed the African representatives were on an
equal footing with their European and International counterparts in terms of
presentation and they attracted equal amount of interest from the attendees.
This indicates that Tourism as a sector is attractive to the International community
and as a result, business cases for Tourism development are likely to be warmly
received than any other sector. This is further supported by the recent rise in
African Diaspora Professional’s economic interest in Africa as their motherland.
Our premise is very simple, to convert natural assets in Africa into Tourism markets
and work with every Tourist Board in Africa interested in attracting investment into
their Tourism sector. We also engage International suppliers to align their products
and services to the development opportunities in the Tourism sector in Africa.
www.Africantourismmarket.com is a technology portal designed to assist African Tourism Boards
and Ministries of Tourism as well as Cultural or Community groups to showcase the natural assets in
their communities to the International supplier market as well as the African Diaspora community
looking for development opportunities in Africa.

2


High level overview
The diagram below describes how we assist African Tourism Boards to convert their natural assets
into Tourism markets as well as engage the African Diaspora and address youth unemployment in
Africa.

3


Our business overview
AfricanTourismMarket.com is a project designed to assist African Trade Boards, Ministries of Culture
and Tourism as well as Community groups in Africa, in converting their natural assets into a viable
Tourism markets.
We aim to achieve this by using state of the art of technology to highlight the natural assets
(including Royal Families) in Africa to the world and the International Tourism sector in order to
draw their investment interest into the African Tourism market.
Our aim is to ensure Africa’s natural assets are brought to the attention of International Tourists and
to expose local businesses to the International community.
African is endowed with culture and traditions that are often encapsulated in its Royal families, the
cultures and traditions of the Royal families are capable of generating tourism if they can be exposed
to the world.
We are a UK based organisation and we would like to celebrate the African Royal families as we
celebrate the British Royal families in the UK. Our target is therefore to ensure each African Royal
family is provided with a platform for it to exhibit its depth of culture and heritage in a bid to drive in
tourism to their community.
Tourism is one of the quickest means of generating trade and development directly into rural
communities in Africa from African Diaspora Professionals as well as from International visitors.

4


Creating opportunities from natural assets in Africa?
The diagram below shows cultural sites in Africa, these are natural assets siting within communities
in Africa. Our aim is to activate such cultural sites; tourism does not only have to be physical visits to
the sites but can also exist virtually as well as be of interest to those interested in research and
development as well as other commercial needs.
Our plan is therefore to activate each of such cultural sites along with the African Tourist Boards, use
African students in carrying out the research into the local businesses around the cultural sites,
identify the development needs and build a business case for the development. All of these are
posted online with the aim facilitating development, For example, identifying 20 development
opportunities across various sectors. We would then map those development opportunities to
International suppliers and the African Diaspora Professionals interested in developing such
opportunities. The student on the ground would be best placed to gain employment by providing
initial assessment tasks and verification or investigation on behalf of the clients.
These cultural sites represent
opportunities across Africa
and employment for the
students in the areas.
Vast amount of subsequent
opportunities can also be
created after the initial
opportunity is established.
Every African Diaspora
Professional is likely to be
interested in the development
of opportunities in their own
country, to this end; we make
the site available to all
Diaspora Professionals.
Allowing each country to focus
on their own development
means each cultural site will
be able to benefit directly
from International suppliers.
The picture above shows over 40 cultural sites, assuming we initiate 5 development opportunities
per site, which will mean 200 development opportunities if 5 students are engage on each project,
we would have created 1000 jobs in Africa in less than a quarter. That will be 1000 youth
employment from something as simple as a natural asset that has been there since the beginning of
time. The community directly benefits from the advantages of developing the cultural sites and as a
result, there is an invested interest in maintaining the development. With 400 projects, 2000 jobs
can be created.

5


African Diaspora with interest in developing Tourism in Africa
We have focused on the African Diaspora community because of their empathy towards
development in Africa and their access to disposable income as well as interest to have alternative
revenue streams whilst keeping their day jobs. Recent reports have indicated the revenue from
African Diaspora to Africa has surpassed Foreign Direct Investment.

The African Diaspora Professionals frequent Africa and have local connections in the rural
communities, they also often have local nationality status which means they are able to launch
businesses locally without much red tape.
Their connection to the rural Royal families is also of importance as this will provide access to the
natural assets that need to be converted into a Tourism markets.
Effectively, the African Diaspora Professional provides an International supplier with effective
collaboration that can provide localisation capability to the supplier’s products and services.
An African Diaspora Professional will be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com and
upload their development projects in Africa. For each project they load up, they will be able to
specify the types of suppliers they are interested in as well as the local skillsets they need. Our web
intelligence service would then map their products to the suppliers as well as the students; the aim
is to promote collaborations in implementing the projects in Africa.
The African Diaspora Professional would therefore be using www.africantourismmarket.com as a
platform for finding out which suppliers and on ground resources are available and applicable for
their products in Africa.

6


Suppliers with products and services for the tourism sector
We also focus on the International suppliers because they have products and services that can
transform the African tourism market and have advanced technology that Africa can benefit from.
There are numerous suppliers with products and services applicable to the African market but due to
fear of engaging Africa and cost, many feel unable to engage the African market. This is the purpose
of our engaging the African Diaspora Professionals as a means of brokering the technology “touching
down” in Africa. The supplier will have the assurance of dealing with an African Diaspora
Professional, who is likely to be a registered entity in Europe or the USA.

Suppliers will be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com and list their products and
services. Our web intelligence engine would match such products and services to natural assets
posted by African Tourism Boards as needing development, as well as to African Diaspora
professionals projects in Africa. Furthermore, there will be engagement of local chambers of
commerce as well as association of local businesses.
The supplier would then be able to provide a proposal describing how their products and services
can assist the African Tourism Board and the African Diaspora Professional’s project to convert the
natural asset into a Tourism market. This is vital, as it not only places the supplier’s products and
services with the natural asset but also describes how the product or service can achieve such an
objective.
A supplier’s use of www.africantourismmarket.com is therefore a marketing tool for product
placement and also acts as catalogue for African Tourism Boards to select which suppliers best fits
their requirements and objectives.
7


Benefits to African Tourism Boards
Some of the benefits we have include the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Showcase Royal family per African country
List the tourist attractions in your country currently doing well to attract more clients
List the tourist attractions that could benefit from more investments and development
Attract Tour operators or package holiday firms to the natural asset
Allow local businesses to sell their merchandise via our e-commerce facility
Use our social media facilities to generate interest in the tourist areas
Use Geo location to gain world attention to the natural assets
Convert local natural assets into tourism interests
Benefit from our customer insight analytics
Participate in our annual exhibition to showcase tourist destinations in Africa
Attract investment partners to develop natural assets into tourist attractions

8


Benefits to International suppliers
International suppliers would be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com with the sole
aim of filling the supply side of our operation that will be mapped to the demand from the African
Tourism Markets.
As an International supplier, you would be able to list products and services on our website and they
will be mapped to development opportunities across Africa. You will also have the option to describe
in articles, blogs and other publications, how you can address the challenges facing some of the
natural assets across Africa.
The benefit of this approach places your products directly in front of the African Tourism Boards and
allows them to see how your product can address the issues and challenges they are attempting to
resolve.

9


Mapping supplier solutions to tourism opportunities in Africa
www.africantourismmarket.com will allow suppliers to see actual projects in Africa where their
products and services are most in demand. This mapping will allow supplier to focus their attention
where the demand is high.

The diagram above (an example) depicts a supplier with 2 products, 2 services and raw materials
need. Once posted on www.africantourismmarket.com the intelligence report will show the demand
across each country. The diagram above shows product 1 has the highest demands from Burundi
and Cape Verde. Product 2 has its highest demands from Chad and Angola and so on.

10


Addressing youth unemployment in Africa
The management of www.Africantourismmarket.com are keen to ensure the impact of Tourism
developments in Africa manifests in employment for the African youths and in particular the African
University/college graduates.
To this end, we will allow students from Universities in Africa to register, free of charge and list their
profiles online as well as state the projects where their skillsets are most applicable. The aim of this
exercise is to ensure that the students can be used as early as the initial stages of the project
development in Africa and gain access to International suppliers, African Diaspora projects dedicated
to the development of the natural assets in their locality.

The diagram above describes the path a student will follow to engage projects and thereby gain
employment, work experience based on their ability or interest to support the projects planned for
their area, subject or interest.
Students with entrepreneurial interests will also be able to post their development ideas to
International suppliers and African Diaspora projects. For example, a student with an
entrepreneurial idea in Agriculture, currently studying or graduated from an Agricultural course. He
or she creates a plan for the idea and identifies the types of Supplier, products and services in the
agricultural sector. His proposal is sent to the matched Suppliers as well as African Diaspora with
11

projects in Agricultural or interest in the particular country. As the Suppliers and African Diaspora
projects would need “touch down” in Africa, the objective is for a agreement to the struck enabling
the student to be paid for his or her services either as part project evaluation phase or research for
the Suppliers or African Diaspora projects.

We believe this sort of engagement will allow such employment opportunities to be generated and
eventually lead to full time or contractual engagement in the project. A student would therefore
have successfully engaged employment directly using the skills that he or she learnt or is learning,
applying it to a community need in his locality and engaging projects and suppliers interested in the
sector and area.

Students will be able to apply directly, their Educational organisations are also welcome to register
with us in order to setup the initiative as a programme. Government youth initiatives as also
welcome to set partnerships with us in order to be able to generate employment for their youths
through development.
Statement from Ben Omoakin Oguntala – My father’s generation hardly knew of the internet and
probably saw computers for first time just before retirement, my generation saw the internet in our
teenage years and worked in it, my children’s generation were born into the Internet age and
technology, to them, a world without feels like the Ice age.
For the African youth, he or she is not only acutely aware of the limitations and problems in his or her
society today, his or her education tells him or her the solutions are not difficult to achieve.
We aim to them complete that cycle by adding the fact that technology and solutions are only an
internet kiosk away. There by putting their destiny directly in their own hands.

12


How it works

13


About us
African Tourism Market is under the Directorship of Forz Khan, Legal Counsel and Ben Omoakin
Oguntala, the Pan African CEO and Founder. The project is associated with DevelopingAfrica.net
Mr Forz Khan, Legal Counsel is a Senior Barrister and his role is to assist African developments to be
fairly represented in contracts and ensure contractually, some of the social and economically
requirements are represented by factoring them into the terms of the agreement. To ensure the
Intellectual Property Rights of our clients are protected and enhanced.
Ben Omoakin Oguntala is a Technology and Programme Management specialist and his aim is to
ensure technology is used as a means of fostering the mass development of African communities by
allowing rural businesses in Africa to deal directly with international suppliers who have technology
and also ensure African Diaspora Professionals are placed at the forefront of development in Africa.
Our aim is to enable the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Provide indiscriminate opportunities to rural businesses across Africa
Ensure women empowerment across Africa in entrepreneurship
Encourage Youth entrepreneurship and employment
Utilisation of African expertise for Tourism development projects in Africa
Engagement of Royal families in Africa as a means of promoting African heritage
Ensure indiscriminate engagement of International suppliers with technology capable of
developing local economies in Africa
7. Ensure community and social economic challenges are addressed contractually

Statement from Ben Omoakin Oguntala…
“Though I am of Nigerian origin, I spent some of teenage years in various African cities including
Maseru Lesotho. As a son of Dr. Akin Oguntala, an Ecologist, having an Ecologist as a Father meant
many holidays were spent in places like Sapoba Village in Edo State, Uyo, Agununanka, Kanji Dam,
Umuahia and Jos in Nigeria, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Nairobi, Kenya, Mount Leribe, Roma, TY in
Lesotho.
One of the most poignant moments I have of Africa is standing on Mount Leribe Forestry station,
3000 meters above sea level. Everybody says God is Great but you truly appreciate the Greatness of
God when you drive through the clouds on the way to the top of Mount Leribe or you are standing in
the middle of the Evergreen Forest in Edo state in front of a Buttress tree as wide as a London bus.
These natural assets are God’s gifts to Africa and located next to people sometimes living in abject
poverty. This is therefore a personal ambition of mine to use my expertise to enable rural Africa,
where I spent considerable amount of time, initiate their development.
I want to use the interest in a natural asset as a means of generating profit that contractually obliges
the building of roads, schools and health facilities for the communities they belong to, as well as
14

allow the youths to gain employment. This will allow the community to directly benefit from the
natural assets and as a result, they would want to maintain it, as its success is directly linked to the
community’s advancement.
We are introducing a novel concept to development in Africa; it is a self-service development or DIY
(Do it yourself) development, this puts the future of Africa in our hands, the concept also considers
community needs into contract law that governs our projects in Africa.
To our clients, we assist in putting in place contracts that address community needs like schools,
health and infrastructure in a sustainable manner. The natural assets we are showcasing belong to
the community and the profits should be reflected directly in the communities.”

Getting started
We welcome registrations from African Tourism Boards, Royal Family representatives, International
suppliers with products and services for the Tourism sector in Africa, African University students
interested in applying their skills to the Tourism sector and the African Diaspora interested in
developing the Tourism sectors in their home communities.
There is subscription fee associated with each account, students are free.
To participate in our project please email info@africantourismmarket.com with details how you
would like to participate.
The project goes live in March 2014 and clients will be able to log on online and get their accounts
activated.

Contact us
Ben Omoakin Oguntala
Ben.oguntala@Africantourismmarket.com
Twitter: afrotourism
Website: www.africantourismmarket.com
Tel: +44 7812 039 867
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfricanTourismMarket
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/african-tourism-market

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Overview of the African tourism market v6

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