A major academic review of tourism investment in Sub-Saharan Africa raises an uncomfortable question: Why does a continent possessing some of the world’s greatest wildlife, landscapes, beaches and cultural heritage continue to attract such a small share of global tourism investment? But there is another question eTurboNews believes now needs to be asked.
Has Africa changed faster than the research examining it?
The systematic review synthesized 124 academic studies and 53 grey-literature documents published between 2000 and 2024. It identified six recurring barriers to tourism investment: land-tenure insecurity, restrictive visa policies, infrastructure deficits, corruption, profit repatriation, and licensing burdens.
Those findings are important. However, viewed from 2026, at least one part of the picture requires significant qualification.
African Tourism Board: Measure Investment Conferences by Deals, Not Delegates
The African Tourism Board (ATB)Marketing Corporation says Africa should also take a harder look at the growing number of tourism and investment conferences, ministerial forums and destination investment summits being staged across the continent, sometimes at considerable cost to host governments, tourism boards and taxpayers. While such events can generate visibility, relationships and valuable policy discussions, ATB argues that their success should ultimately be measured by what happens after the delegates fly home.
The critical questions are straightforward: How many investment announcements reach financial close? How many projects actually break ground? How much capital is deployed? How many sustainable jobs are created? And how many of those investments are still delivering measurable benefits to the destination five years later?
According to the African Tourism Board, destinations should consider moving beyond expensive conference formats centered on speeches, ceremonies, attendance figures and headline-grabbing memoranda of understanding. A more effective model could put bankable projects and investors at the center, using smaller deal rooms, pre-qualified investors, development finance institutions, lenders and infrastructure partners; completing due diligence before meetings take place; and publicly tracking announced projects for 12, 24 and 36 months after an event.
“The ultimate KPI for an African tourism investment summit should not be how many ministers spoke, how many delegates attended, or even how many billions of dollars were announced. It should be how much responsible investment actually arrived and what that investment did for the destination,” is the position advocated by the African Tourism Board.
This does not mean conferences have no value. Investment forums increasingly promote structured one-to-one meetings and bankable project pipelines, and these approaches deserve support. The challenge for Africa is to turn networking into transactions and announcements into functioning businesses. For destinations spending scarce public tourism funds, return on investment should apply to investment conferences just as rigorously as it applies to the investors those conferences are designed to attract.
Africa’s Visa Story Is Changing
Visa restrictions appeared in 67% of the sources reviewed by the researchers. Historically, there is little argument that visas have been one of African tourism’s self-imposed competitive disadvantages. But Africa of 2026 is no longer Africa of 2010.
The latest evidence from the African Development Bank and African Union shows a continent undergoing a significant — although highly uneven — transformation in mobility.
Visa-free intra-African travel scenarios increased from about 20% in 2016 to 28% in 2025. Thirty-nine African countries have improved their visa-openness scores since 2016.
Countries including Rwanda, Seychelles, Benin, The Gambia and Ghana have become prominent examples of greater African mobility.
Angola has taken another route, opening itself aggressively to international tourism by exempting nationals of 98 countries from tourist visas. For eligible visitors, Angola permits stays of up to 30 days per entry and as much as 90 days during a year. That is not a minor administrative adjustment.
It potentially changes the economics of selling Angola as a tourism destination.
Rwanda has similarly made border access a component of its economic strategy, combining visa-on-arrival policies with particularly liberal arrangements for East African Community citizens. Yet there is a paradox.
The African Development Bank reported in 2026 that the average Africa Visa Openness Index score for 2025 stood at approximately 0.45, slightly below the 0.48 recorded in 2020.
In other words, spectacular national reforms coexist with frustratingly slow continental integration. Africa is opening — but not uniformly.
Perhaps Visas Are No Longer the Biggest Problem
That distinction matters for tourism investors. If entry formalities improve but investment does not accelerate correspondingly, attention inevitably moves to the remaining obstacles.
- Can investors obtain secure land rights?
- Can a resort get reliable electricity?
- Is there potable water?
- Can international airlines operate commercially viable routes?
- Can profits and dividends be repatriated?
- Are roads from airports to tourism regions adequate?
- Can a project obtain permits without navigating multiple ministries and local authorities?
- Can investors obtain predictable foreign-exchange access?
- Are tourism concessions transparent?
- And perhaps most importantly: will the local community benefit enough from the project to support it?
- These questions may increasingly matter more than the tourist visa itself.
Tourism Is Already Becoming More Important to Africa
The investment debate is occurring against a much stronger tourism recovery than existed when much of the literature reviewed in the study was written.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, Travel & Tourism contributed approximately US$228 billion to Africa’s economy in 2025, representing around 7% of regional GDP.
WTTC says the sector grew by approximately 5% in 2025, faster than the broader African economy. Globally, Travel & Tourism contributed about US$11.6 trillion in 2025, representing approximately 9.8% of the world economy. Africa therefore has growth, tourism assets and improving access.
What it does not yet have is a proportionate share of global tourism capital. That changes the question. It may no longer be sufficient to say investors do not come to Africa because tourists cannot obtain visas.
Infrastructure May Be Moving to the Top of the List
Infrastructure could increasingly become the decisive constraint. Tourism does not operate independently from a country’s transport, electricity, digital and water systems.
A safari lodge may be sustainable, beautiful and internationally marketable, but its investment economics deteriorate rapidly when an investor must finance the access road, diesel generation, water treatment, staff housing, telecommunications and sometimes even security infrastructure.
This is where organizations not traditionally considered tourism institutions become critical.
The World Bank Group says US$225 million in MIGA guarantees has helped enable approximately US$450 million of foreign direct investment into hospitality in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The European Union’s Global Gateway strategy is simultaneously financing and mobilizing investment in African transport, energy and digital connectivity.
These investments may not carry the word “tourism” in their titles, but they can fundamentally change tourism economics. Consider the Lobito Corridor.
The EU-backed initiative connects Angola’s Atlantic coast with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia and has the potential to become a transcontinental transport connection. Its primary justification is not tourism.
But roads, railways, ports, electricity and digital infrastructure do not recognize ministerial boundaries. Infrastructure built for trade can also unlock destinations. The same applies in Mozambique, where EU-supported investment includes rural roads, regional corridors such as Nacala and Mueda-Negomano, and rail modernization.
For tourism policymakers, the implication is significant:
Africa’s next tourism strategy may need to be written partly by transport, energy, finance and digital ministries rather than tourism ministries alone.
The World Bank Has a Role — But So Do African Governments
- Development finance can de-risk private tourism investment.
- Guarantees can mitigate political and contractual risk.
- Concessional finance can support infrastructure.
- Blended finance can make conservation projects investable.
- But international institutions cannot compensate indefinitely for weak domestic governance.
- The systematic review found land-tenure insecurity in 73% of the sources examined, infrastructure deficits in 61%, corruption in 58%, profit-repatriation concerns in 52%, and licensing burdens in 44%.
- If visa reform continues, these obstacles become increasingly exposed.
- A country cannot advertise “visa-free tourism” while requiring an investor to spend several years obtaining a tourism concession.
Nor can a government attract sustainable investment by awarding community or conservation land without transparent consultation.
Security Cannot Be Separated From Investment
Another issue deserves greater emphasis in the 2026 discussion: security. Tourism capital is unusually sensitive to perceptions of instability. Hotels, resorts, attractions and lodges are immovable assets. Investors cannot relocate a US$50 million resort when security conditions deteriorate.
This places countries affected by insurgencies, coups, cross-border instability or persistent travel warnings at a structural disadvantage irrespective of their natural tourism potential.
But Africa should also resist being treated as a single security environment.
- Mauritius is not Mali.
- Rwanda is not Somalia.
- Botswana is not Sudan.
- Seychelles is not the Sahel.
- One of international tourism’s recurring mistakes is applying continental risk perceptions to individual African destinations.
Investment analysis must become country-specific and increasingly destination-specific.
UN Tourism’s Africa Agenda Is Moving in the Same Direction
UN Tourism — formerly UNWTO — identifies travel facilitation and connectivity alongside investment promotion and public-private partnerships as priorities under its Agenda for Africa. That combination is important.
Tourism promotion without connectivity does not work. Connectivity without investment produces visitors but insufficient tourism capacity. Investment without community participation can produce enclaves. And investment without environmental limits can destroy the assets upon which tourism depends.
The original study’s Sustainable Tourism Investment Readiness, or STIR, framework therefore remains highly relevant even if some of its underlying constraints are changing.
Its three pillars — pro-poor outcomes, ecological limits and procedural justice — move the investment discussion beyond the conventional question:
- “How easy is it to invest?”toward a much more consequential question:
- “What kind of investment should Africa want?”
The Danger of Winning the Wrong Investment
Africa could theoretically increase tourism FDI while becoming less sustainable. An international resort might generate impressive investment statistics while importing construction materials, expatriate management, food, and operating supplies. Profits may leave the country.
Local communities may receive low-wage employment while losing access to beaches, grazing areas or ancestral land. Water-intensive developments can compete with surrounding communities.
Wildlife tourism can generate conservation revenue while simultaneously excluding people who historically occupied conservation landscapes.
That is the investment-sustainability paradox identified by the researchers. The solution therefore cannot simply be “more FDI.” It must be better FDI.
What Should Governments Do in 2026?
The emerging policy agenda is different from the one Africa faced 15 years ago. Visa liberalization should continue, particularly for intra-African travel.
But countries that have already substantially liberalized entry should move quickly to the second generation of tourism reforms.
These include secure and transparent land-tenure systems; digitized licensing and investment approvals; predictable tax and foreign-exchange regimes; reliable electricity and water; stronger aviation connectivity; transparent tourism concessions; enforceable community benefit-sharing; improved destination security; and environmental carrying-capacity requirements.
Tourism ministries should also be included much earlier in national infrastructure planning.
A highway, railway, airport, broadband connection or renewable-energy project can sometimes produce a greater tourism investment impact than another international marketing campaign.
Africa Should Connect Tourism to Global Gateway, World Bank and DFI Capital
There is another opportunity. Tourism governments frequently approach development institutions asking them to finance “tourism.” That may be the wrong approach.
A destination could instead present an integrated regional investment proposition:
renewable electricity + roads + water + broadband + conservation + SME finance + tourism accommodation + aviation access.
Such structures could potentially attract capital from the World Bank Group, African Development Bank, European institutions, climate funds, infrastructure investors and private hospitality groups simultaneously.
The EU’s Global Gateway is already investing in sustainable transport, digital connectivity, energy and climate resilience across Africa.
- The African Development Bank is deeply involved in regional integration.
- The World Bank Group has mechanisms capable of reducing investment risk.
- UN Tourism can contribute tourism policy and investment expertise.
- WTTC can mobilize and communicate private-sector priorities.
- The missing element is often coordination.
Africa’s Tourism Opportunity Is Becoming Harder to Ignore
UN Tourism reported that international tourist arrivals worldwide increased another 4% in 2025, reaching roughly 1.52 billion. Improved air connectivity and visa facilitation were among the factors supporting that growth.
Africa therefore enters the second half of the decade in a stronger position than the historical investment literature might suggest.
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