The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the tourism industry worldwide. International arrivals dropped by 74% globally in 2020 and tourist accommodations, businesses, borders and heritage sites had to close, resulting in a loss of income for those working in the tourism sectors. In Africa, the impact was deeply felt. In Kenya, tourist arrivals shrank from nearly 620,000 in April 2019 to 393,000 the following April. In South Africa, they fell from 10.2 million in 2019 to 2.8 million in 2020, and while almost 174,000 visited Tanzania in the third trimester of 2019, only 13,000 did so during the same period of 2020.
Yet is this situation been such a bad thing? A number of studies have lamented that international tourism has often generated an unequal distribution of economic benefits, increased social disparities, marginalised local communities, and exploited local resources. This is particularly the case in Africa, where tourism has mainly benefited international and foreign companies and individuals, with the core tools of air travels and e-commerce concentrated in the Global North.
