Imagine a series of interconnected travel routes that span Africa, where the Âpeople who live along them are the autonomous providers of hospitality to travellers and beneÂficiaries of the trade they bring.
In fact, this is not that far off, as Open Africa, an NGO based in Cape Town, spreads its net of tourist routes as far as Zambia.
But rather than entrenching old-school ideas of tourism – foreigner arrives, pays large tour Âoperator/hotel conglomerate for lovely time in ”Aaaafrica” and tips the ”help” – Open Africa helps communities to develop their own travel routes, making them creators, owners and beneficiaries of the business that comes their way.
In one of the finest examples of development Open Africa offers people who wouldn’t normally have access to the sector the opportunity to become tourism entrepreneurs. ”I am a recycled businessman, so I have an entrepreneurial background,” says Noel de Villiers, founder of Open Africa.
His decision to create Open Africa goes back to the early 1990s, he says, when the euphoria of a free South Africa swept the country. But De Villiers understood that euphoria would be short-lived if sustainable jobs were not created for the many people who had been left behind by the apartheid economy.
Open Africa works to develop a tourism route in partnership with the community, which effectively owns and runs it. It brings together people from across a community including accommodation suppliers, tour operators, transport operators, artisans, guides, food suppliers, other tourism entrepreneurs and local government to promote tourism to its area.
Open African helps communities identify natural and cultural assets and use them to attract visitors. ”The best way to make these assets work is through tourism,” says De Villiers.
Open Africa has helped set up routes across South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.
The routes created by Open Africa are not imposed on communities. ”Our observation is that ideas imposed from outside don’t work. We go only where we are invited,” De Villiers says.
”It doesn’t have to be people with interests in tourism already; people can start from nothing. We help people identify naturally attractive assets that have just not been realised.”
As communities begin to understand what attractive features they have at hand the process often becomes a reveÂlation to participants, says De Villiers.
But Open Africa, while helping to create sustainable employment, is also about addressing Africa’s growing environmental crisis, as resources are exploited to the detriment of people living alongside them. In addition, the utilisation of natural assets goes hand in hand with their conservation.
As an NGO Open Africa operates without a revenue stream. It acts as catalyst, facilitating access to government, NGOs and investors that can provide a route with the requisite financial resources.
Open Africa records all the information for each route down to GPS coordinates and includes this on the website www.openafrica.org. Here each route is advertised, providing visitors with as much information they need to plan their trips.
Not all routes are immediately successful – they may be in remote areas and may lack leadership – but at least the communities are undergoing ”some kind of the process” towards becoming self-sustaining custodians of their wealth, says De Villiers.
A challenge for many routes is Âfinding products that add value for a visitor. And it is with the ”value adds”, says De Villiers, ”that you Âcreate Âprofitability”.
In a bid to help all the route participants Open Africa holds ”mini-Âindabas” where participants share ideas on how to become profitable.
Open Africa does not lay claim to creating jobs, says De Villiers. ”This is something the route participants do.” Since operations began in 1995 the participants, about 2 000, have created employment for about 22 000 people.
In addition to its core activities Open Africa collates data from its routes to create reliable industry statistics. ”We find there is a huge lack of knowledge of what is going on in tourism at grassroots level,” says De Villiers.
Within a year he hopes that Open Africa will become a reliable source for trends in tourism at ground level.
De Villiers is blunt about the fact that tourism is largely still white-owned. ”The emerging market is the key to the long-term survival of the industry.
”There is a huge opportunity for the transfer of skills between the traditionally white industry and emerging entrepreneurs,” he says.
It is a big incentive to share knowledge to strengthen the final product and make South Africa an even more attractive destination to visitors.
