The face of travel and tourism (both domestic and foreign tourism) is going to change forever. We all looked forward to 2021, assuming that as the clocks struck 12 at midnight on 31st December 2020, COVID-19, the pandemic was going to disappear. But viruses do not keep to time, and as they mutate and become relentless, there are a few things we can learn from our experience of 2020 and what it means for 2021.
For me, personally, it has meant a solidification of my conviction that domestic tourism is the way for tourism development in West Africa. It is time to look more deeply, inwardly, to know, to understand, to acknowledge, and then to develop. Some challenges we have are relating to the quality of accommodation, hospitality provisions, visitor experience at our tourism sites, the quality of tourism offerings, cost of travel, security, healthcare provisions and the information available about tourism offerings. All of these will need to be thought through and reworked at micro and macro levels at tourism destination level.
It is also time for more tourism-focused investment, and at Red Clay, we have been happy to work with clients who understand this, and that in the short-medium and long term, the focus on domestic tourism can contribute to the tourism development we have spoken so much about.
Happy New Year!
Red Clay Advisory is a tourism advisory practice specialising in tourism strategy development, tourism master plan, feasibility studies and tourism research.