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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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How the outbreak has hit tourism in Africa

Safari, Cheetah, Maasai Mara, Kenya

With its game parks, beaches and historic sites, Africa attracts a huge number of foreign tourists but numbers are sharply down because of the coronavirus outbreak, writes Larry Madowo.

Maria Maile has been cooking lunches and hosting overnight guests at her home in South Africa’s coastal city of Cape Town since her first three guests checked in nearly 22 years ago.

She lives there with her daughter and three grandchildren, but the spare room has been available to book – until that is the coronavirus outbreak shut down South Africa, and her business, in March.

“Guests are not coming in so the only income I’m getting is the social grant from the government,” she told me from her home in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township.

“I fear for myself as well because I’m 70. I need the money, but my health comes first,” she added.

Ms Maile’s predicament underscores how the pandemic has crippled Africa’s tourism industry, depleted much needed foreign exchange earnings and left millions out of work.

Anxiety among travellers

A few countries on the continent are starting to allow international flights again.

But this raises a dilemma: open up too fast and foreign tourists could bring a new outbreak of Covid-19; remain closed for too long and more livelihoods will be lost and there might be little left to salvage.

“To say the impact of the crisis has been devastating is an understatement,” said Naledi Kabo, CEO of Africa Tourism Association.

“I don’t think tourism will ever look like it did before.”

Africa received 71.2 million tourists in 2019 and the sector employed nearly 25 million people, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization.

Travel and tourism contribute 9% to the continent’s economy but global movement restrictions and virus-induced travel anxiety have kept most people in Europe and North America at home as the summer holiday season begins.

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African countries have already lost nearly $55bn (£43bn) in revenues so far, according to the African Union.

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“Psychologically, people don’t necessarily feel safe enough to travel and even then, unemployment numbers are going up so disposable income isn’t where it needs to be any more,” said Eche Emole, who runs the events and travel company Afropolitan Group.

He has already cancelled planned tour group trips to Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Ghana. And now major end-of-year events in Accra, which attracted nearly 100,000 people in 2019, could be next.

“The goal right now is to stay alive. Whatever else you lose; you can always get it back,” Mr Emole said.

Long way to recovery

Tanzania and Tunisia, famous for their game parks and beaches respectively, are the only major African countries that have reopened international borders and are welcoming foreign tourists.

Morocco and Mauritius, both popular destinations, have ended national lockdowns but foreign visitors are not yet allowed in.

Kenya, Seychelles and Rwanda will resume international passenger flights on 1 August but with restrictions and visitors will have to test negative for coronavirus.

“Our rough estimate is that tourism revenues in 2020 will shrink by between 50 and 70%,” Clare Akamanzi, chief executive officer of the Rwanda Development Board, said in an emailed statement.

“However, this will depend on what happens in the last few months of the year after the reopening of the airports.”

The tiny East African nation, where mountain gorillas are a major tourist attraction, reported its highest annual growth in tourism in 2019, attracting 1.63 million visitors and earning $498m.

Ms Akamanzi said recovery might take “12 to 18 months depending on how the Covid-19 situation evolves”.

Rwanda is one of the few countries where rare mountain gorillas can be seen

South Africa, the country hardest hit by Covid-19 on the continent, may not play host to foreign tourists at all in 2020.

“I don’t foresee any international tourism happening within this calendar year,” said Sisa Ntshona, chief executive officer of South Africa Tourism.

He expects that it may take two to three years to return to 2019 levels of 10.2 million tourists that visited the southern African nation.

Targeting the diaspora

Many South Africans were spooked after a widely shared news story at the beginning of the pandemic falsely claimed that Cape Town’s high numbers of coronavirus infections were caused by foreign tourists.

But Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, said the first cases of Covid-19 were more likely imported by South Africans who had travelled abroad.

The agency has been researching how badly “the Mother City” has been affected as much visited attractions like Table Mountain remain largely empty.

Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap area has been a popular attraction for tourists

“About 83% of businesses indicated that they would not survive longer than six months under the current lockdown conditions with 56% of businesses not having a recovery plan in place,” Mr Duminy said in a statement to the BBC.

Few in the African tourism business want to predict the future because the virus is so volatile. But they know it will be different.

“Covid-19 has shone a light on issues that have previously existed – digitization; the need to shift traditional marketing efforts to target new diverse audiences especially the diaspora market; making intra-Africa travel easier via visas, air connectivity; and regional collaboration between destinations,” Ms Kabo said.

“Secluded outdoor spaces are the new normal and Rwanda has plenty of that “https://ift.tt/2HfCbR7;, Source: Clare Akamanzi , Source description: CEO Rwanda Development Board , Image: Clare Akamanzi

Namibia, Kenya and Rwanda are among nations adapting to a work-from-home era with virtual tours to appeal to a younger population.

“Rwanda will continue to position itself as a high value, low volume eco-tourism destination which we believe corresponds to the current trends that we are seeing today as tourists book their trips.

“Secluded outdoor spaces are the new normal and Rwanda has plenty of that,” Ms Akamanzi said.

Tourists at hotels, resorts and other properties on the continent may see less human contact as the experience evolves in an age of social distancing.

“What’s going to change fundamentally is the behaviour pattern of the tourists. This is going to be about safety and confidence and trust. And the less interaction they have with people, the safer they will feel,” noted Mr Ntshona.

Curio shops have seen a slump in business because of coronavirus

The Radisson Hotel Group, which has 45 hotels and more than 5,000 employees in Africa, has already seen the inevitable effect on headcount.

“We really have focused on perhaps reducing hours, temporary layoffs or cutting costs in other parts of our business rather than taking very difficult decisions with our teams,” said Radisson executive Tim Cordon.

Like the rest of the industry, he believes domestic tourism will be first to recover as countries gradually ease lockdowns.

As a result, Ms Maile in Khayelitsha could until next year be serving lunches to South African visitors rather than the usual tourists from Paris and beyond.

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aroomofourownfeministnetwork · 6 years ago

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The only feminism that can challenge xenophobic and misogynist populism is inclusive feminism, by Ms Afropolitan

Image is Pulchritude by Christo Makatita

On 7 June, the European Women’s Lobby launched its campaign for the 2019 European Parliament elections for equal representation of women. Over 100 leading women’s rights activists from the EWL membership across Europe gathered at the EU Parliament in Brussels under the theme of “Women ReShaping Power”. I had the honour of delivering a keynote . …

In the…

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#feminism #global feminism #misogyny

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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How a photographer tricked the internet with a digitally generated ‘supermodel’

In the competitive world of Instagram photography, there is perhaps nothing more coveted than a celebrity regramming your photo.

For British fashion photographer Cameron-James Wilson, that dream became a reality when Fenty Beauty re-posted his photo of “model” Shudu alongside the caption “in living color.” Problem was, the word “living” wasn’t entirely accurate.

Shudu is the world’s first “digital supermodel,” an image created using 3D image rendering software programme DAZ3D, and not, as the image suggests, a “living” human. Furthermore, the claim that this “model” was wearing Fenty Beauty’s Mattemoiselle lipstick in SAWC was untrue.

A scroll through the comments will shed some light on the criticism faced by Wilson over the past few weeks, since he revealed that Shudu was a digitally rendered image. Wilson claims it has been wrongly reported that he was “forced” to reveal she wasn’t real, arguing that it was “never a big secret”. But when Harper’s Bazaar reached out for an interview, he “knew it was time to just clarify everything.”

🍊🍊🍊 . . 📸@cjw.photo . #fenty #fentybeauty #mattemoiselle #sawc #3dart

A post shared by Shudu Gram (@shudu.gram) on Feb 5, 2018 at 8:25am PST

Wilson has been criticized for not being “upfront” from the outset about the fact that Shudu wasn’t real. “I completely accept that criticism. I’ve changed it now, I’ve taken down certain hashtags,” he told Mashable. This lack of honesty did not, he says, stem from a desire to fool people or gain Instagram followers. “It was to prove something to myself,” he adds. “Can I create this illusion that she is real? The answer to that question was overwhelmingly answered as yes I can create that illusion.”

Wilson says it was “shocking” to him that people believed she was real. Asked if he regrets tagging Fenty Beauty in an Instagram post of Shudu with the aim of getting a re-post, he says he has “no regrets.”

@fentybeauty #profiltrfoundation #shade490 #glossbomb #lipgloss #fentybeauty #3dart . . 📸 @cjw.photo

A post shared by Shudu Gram (@shudu.gram) on Nov 20, 2017 at 10:09am PST

“I did that for my sister so there’s absolutely no regrets,” he says.

His sister “absolutely loves Fenty” and kept telling him that “Fenty always re-posts stuff” and that he should “do a lipstick post.” Wilson says seeing the look on his sister’s face when Fenty regrammed the photo made it all worthwhile. Not to mention the fact that the post garnered over 215K likes.

But, a quick scan through the Instagram comments suggests that not everyone shares this delight. For example, comments say things like: “this girl ain’t real,” and “she is not even real person lol.” But, the overwhelming majority of comments are not focused on deception, rather the fact that a white photographer could be “capitalising off black bodies” through the creation of the image.

SEE ALSO: Meet Vero: Why a billionaire’s Instagram alternative is suddenly so popular

This is problematic. Instead of hiring a black model, the photographer created one. Is it that hard to pay black women? Also shows how much dark skin is still being exoticised by the media. https://t.co/tfmcUzAdzZ

— Moza (@MozaFrique) February 28, 2018

On Twitter, critics slammed Wilson for creating an image of a black woman rather than hiring a black model. Moza Moyo, a rapper based in South Africa, told Mashable he found it “problematic” that “a white photographer would profit off blackness” with the creation of Shudu. “I wouldn’t have a problem if he’d hired an actual black model and paid her. Black models need work,” he says.

So Shudu was created by a white man to profit off of black women without actually having to pay them??? HELLA NERVE. Technology came a long way however It’s plenty of dark skinned models who look like her but they get overlooked. Book them instead of cloning them. https://t.co/oiB7vA8l7U

— Emma Frost 3/12💎 (@Drebae_) February 28, 2018

As much as I appreciate art I detest the fact that the minute dark skin is finally glamourized by the mainstream media a white man finds a way to commericalize & capitalize off it. Black skin is not a trend. Black skin is not a toy. Black women even more not so. #Shudu #FreeShudu pic.twitter.com/pu79IGcU1s

— Sonia Pratt (@adrianette_) February 28, 2018

Not everyone is in agreement with this school of thought, however. Nigerian-Finnish journalist Minna Salami, founder of the Ms Afropolitan blog, doesn’t think that Shudu is problematic given the lack of representation of black women in the fashion industry. “The lack of representation of black women in the fashion industry is a big problem that is rooted in white supremacist beauty ideals,” says Salami. “I would argue that Shudu, insofar as she has been designed as the artist’s idea of the perfect woman, challenges the myth of there being only one type of beauty ideal.”

The World’s First Digital Supermodel, Shudu. . . 📸 @cjw.photo . . #3dart #daz3d #blackfrodolls

A post shared by Shudu Gram (@shudu.gram) on Mar 3, 2018 at 12:08pm PST

Wilson says he understands the criticisms he’s received, but refutes the claim that he’s profiting from Shudu in any way, and he says he doesn’t feel he’s taking jobs away from anyone. “There has been a lot of misinformation put out there saying that I’m being hired, or that she’s taking jobs away from people, that’s just misinformation. I haven’t been hired, I haven’t been paid,” he says.

He says he hopes that the creation of Shudu will encourage greater representation of black models in the fashion world, and in the 3D animation world.

“Her skin colour is something we don’t see enough of in the media, there’s a lot of underrepresentation,” he adds. “I love to work with dark-skinned models, I won’t apologise for thinking that’s beautiful. I’m not doing it with the intent to capitalise on or take away from models.”

Moyo says that Wilson’s response highlights that “for a long time, white people have had the privilege to take anything from blackness that benefits them.” “For centuries, dark skin has been shunned as undesirable but now that it’s getting the recognition it deserves, it’s suddenly become “cool” and “trendy,”” he says. “Dark skin and black women in general are not a trend.”

Mashable reached out to Fenty Beauty for comment but did not immediately hear back. At the time of publication, the Fenty Beauty Instagram post was still live.

Shudu isn’t a real person, but her Instagram following, which currently stands at nearly 70K followers, now far surpasses that of many human models and influencers.

The internet might have been deceived by Shudu’s lifelike image at the beginning, but Wilson’s efforts appear to have paid off, gaining him a great deal of media attention.

WATCH: Watching these kinetic sand shapes get sliced and squashed will hypnotize you

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Read more: https://mashable.com/2018/03/08/shudu-digital-supermodel/

from Viral News HQ https://ift.tt/2J8xRTl via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

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amiboisland · 7 years ago

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Nigeria Jollof Declared Winner At Jollof Fesitival

Think the chase for supremacy might have just ended! On July 2, 2017, Ms. Atinuke Ogunsalu of Queensway Restaurant & Catering in Maryland, US, became the winner of the first ever Jollof Hackathon presented by I/O Spaces during Jollof Festival In Washington DC. The event was organized by Afropolitan Insights. Ms. Ogunsalu put skeptics to shame with her win and proved to all that Nigerians can…

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#Nigerian Jellof Rice Beats Ghana&039;s and Other To Be Named The &039;World Best&039;

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futurafrika · 9 years ago

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#spuntodiriflessione: Questa vignetta dell'artista sudanese Khalid Albaih ci ha fatto tornare in mente uno status di MsAfropolitan scritto alcuni mesi fa: «You cannot always pick sides, things are often two-sided if not multidimensional. Depending on the broader point you are aiming at, [...] Obama is both a progressive and an exploiting leader - he may largely be progressive for Americans but, in so far he is a world leader, his policy has been exploitative, for instance, in Africa. [...]»

#ms afropolitan #khalid albaih #khartoon #cartoon #vignetta #barack obama #obama drops mic

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ngozimonica · 9 years ago

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Who is With Us?

As a young African feminist I often find myself spending hours on the web, searching for the tools and resources to help me on this journey. I always say that being a feminist is so much more than a label,it’s a way of life and a mentality. In order to make sure that I am constantly feeding myself with more information about my specific feminism (young, African, Sierra Leonean), there are certain…

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#african feminism #african young women #AWDF #minna salami #ms afropolitan #spectra speaks

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eeloom · 12 years ago

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what does women's day mean to african bloggers? via @msafropolitan

#IWD #International Women's Day #Ms Afropolitan #blogs

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openforum2012-blog · 12 years ago

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A blog post by Youth Summit and Open Forum participant, Minna Salami (aka Ms Afropolitan).

Blessol Gathoni, Jan Moolman, Minna Salami, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Spectra

I got back in to London this morning from the YouthSummit and the OpenForum 2012 in Cape Town, a very relevant conference that brought together African thinkers from creative, activist, scholarly, political and technocratic backgrounds. It was expertly put together by OSISA, who as promised created a truly “unapologetic space for reflection and debate”. From Femi Kuti to Mona El Tahawy to Pettina Gappah, the panels consisted of game changers from diverse professional backgrounds as well as age group and regions. I’m confident that the result will be fruitful exchanges in terms of future agendas and plans to promote African interests and I’m still buzzing from all the knowledge and ideas I acquired. Apart from the key themes–Money, Power & Sex–the following, although by no means an exhaustive list,were in my opinion seven key concepts that African thinkers are chewing on.

The Aid industry

The role and relevance of global institutions was widely discussed. Are global institutions beneficial or harmful to Africans? Should they be entirely de-associated from future development work? What can be done about the hypocrisy involved in global institutions’ policies? And what are the consequences of relying on the aid industry for development? Personally, I believe that the next step in the aid industry dialogue is to cease to question whether it is beneficial or harmful for Africans and to proceed with addressing its negative sides. The aid industry is the primary area of west/Africa relations that imports undermining and racist legacies of the past into our present day. I say this for several reasons. For example, in report after report concerning poverty in Africa it neglects to situate poverty also in its historical causes. Also, the aid industry isn’t accountable to anyone. It alleviates ‘white guilt’ through what has been called the White Saviour Industrial Complex. It creates imagery that depicts Africans as sub-humans. Basically, whilst on the one hand working towards justice, on the other hand, much of the aid industry is structured to rely on the very same pillars that upholds racial injustice. This cycle needs an overhaul if it is to create change rather than empower the status quo.

Aid, as in to give support, is of course something humanity needs to engage with more, not less. I am referring here to the aid “industry”, which as the name implies is woven together with other industries that are part of the world order we find ourselves in.

Values and Frames has some insightful material on how not to reinforce supremacist thinking in campaigns and War on Want is an example of an alternative type of NGO.

Sexuality

Over the past year or two the issue of homosexuality in particular has been creating much controversy in Africa. The west has threatened to withdraw aid from states that legislate homophobia, which although in this case has an important cause at the forefront, is another indicator of the master/servant nature of the aid industry. Perhaps the one good outcome of these events is that it has mobilized LGBTI activists and allies.There is an urgent need to understand that much of the resentment does not have to do with historical traditions, as many precolonial African societies were accepting of same-sex relationships (I’ve written about that here) but with a much more deep-rooted belief in homogeneity. Although cultures and traditions have shifted from century to century, an element that seems to have remained quite constant are ‘absolutes’. I think that we need to find ways in which we can maintain strong ideas of community whilst being critical of ideas within the community that ostracizes members or that function from a desire to assert ourselves in opposition to the west.

The OpenForum 2012 proved that contrary to what international mainstream media would have us believe, Africa is well equipped with activists who are using powerful, Africa-centered and effective ways to dismantle the mindset that fails to allow people the primordial human right of ownership over ones body.

African Feminism

In the last two decades, the most successful social movement in Africa has been the women’s movement, particularly in policy and legislation. Yet disproportionate amounts of women are still terribly marginalized and unable to exercise their rights, a predicament which I’d argue has much to do with African feminist ideas not being sufficiently merged with Gender and Development (GAD) work, which again has much to do with NGO-ization of this segment. Questions were posed around the politics of sexual pleasure, of how patriarchy and media interact, of how women are occupying political movements, of how traditional gender roles cause violence against women and in a session that I participated in (pictured), we discussed how African feminists are combining online with offline work.

I must say, it was African feminist-heaven! Many of the sisters who use the #AfriFem hashtag to share information on twitter were present, as were African feminists scholars, activists, artists and politicians. Those who believe that feminism is unAfrican would have seen something different at this conference.

Looking inwards

Although African economies are growing, inequality remains a major problem bringing the need to question how civil society and the state can better work together. Questions were raised on the role of citizens, on holding south-south dialogue and on building policies and justice systems that reflect African societies to name only a few. Central to these discussions are finding the ways in which we can create synergies between tradition and modernity, a threshold many of us stand before, and one which simultaneously is exciting and daunting.

Creativity

There could have been room to include more broad discussions on creativity. But maybe this is my bias! I think that creative arts plays a fundamental role in shaping society, identity, modernity and could inform even more greatly the looking inwards process that we are undertaking. However, although I would have wished for even more discussions on creative arts, there was indeed a juicy discussion on a panel which included personalities such as Femi Kuti, Simphiwe Dana and Binyavanga Wainana to name a few. Outside of the conference schedule participants were spoilt with poetry by Stacey-Ann Chin amongst others and Afrobeat with Femi Kuti. The above mentioned was the most energetic panel discussion by far, and the heated debates had to do with whether the use of indigenous language would be less unifying than that of colonial languages, with patriarchal values and the history of women in Africa and with tradition vs. modernity, revealing in my opinion a need to discuss more of these key themes through the prism of the arts.

Technology

Especially on the day of the YouthSummit, we discussed technology and how online tools can be used to create change. However, there wasn’t a plenary on technology in the OpenForum programme, which I think would have been rewarding. Technology is playing such a key role in shaping African spaces and in building cultural identities, so a prioritized discussion on for example developing African apps, social media, on its effects and uses towards environmentally-friendly practices and on how the continent is leading the way in mobile technology are platforms that are very much connected to money, sex and power.

Revolution

If there was one thing that was present in every plenary, panel discussion, lunch discussion or workshop session, it was revolution. And furthermore, it was largely about a revolution that takes place within. Mona El Tahawy put it best when she spoke of the Egyptian protests and concluded by saying that now that Egyptians had succeeded in removing Mubarak from office, the next critical step was to remove “Mubarak” from their heads and bedrooms.

Revolution as “a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people’s ideas about it”, is the type of change that is necessary not only in Africa, but all across our world.

What themes would you add? Any other thoughts? Respond, here.

#Blog Posts #Ms Afropolitan #Youth Summit #Open Forum 2012 #moneypowersex