The Sunday News
Phineas Chauke
THE essence of hospitality is for a person to feel as if they are home (or even better) when in fact they are away from home and surrounded by strangers.
Getting anyone to feel at home should not be very hard in Africa for Africa is indeed home.
Now, on the part of the host, making someone feel at home is not a skill learnt in school, it is an inherent soft skill, a charismatic and assuring presence and warmth exuded by one’s personality that is contagious to everyone in close proximity.
Africa has its own magnetic power of attraction that no human soul can resist.
Africa is indeed the universal and original home to all humanity. Everyone has that unconscious nostalgia within them that stirs a yearning to come home to Africa.
The moment they step on African soil, that connection with the place and the people, that has been dormant becomes activated, it becomes overwhelming and dominant.
That on its own sets the irresistible aura of African serendipitous delight.
At this point all the African host needs to do is to put the icing to the cake.
This, however, does not imply that the hosts have to be complacent, tourism costs money to the tourists — lots of it.
In fact some people save up for the whole year or longer for them to go on their dream holidays.
For some it is a lifetime experience and it has to match that billing. Tourism is business and not charity therefore Africans should not look at tourists as donors who should part with their money for sympathy.
What the tourist pays for is world class service delivered in an African setting.
Satisfaction in tourism hinges on product quality, value for money and convenience, and all these boxes should be ticked in a manner uniquely African.
Africanness therefore should be proudly and expertly brought out in a way that overally enriches the service rather than compromise it. It is prudent therefore for tourism marketers and destination managers across the African continent to identify and leverage the African unique selling points in their communications so as to generate or trigger the nostalgia.
We need to compete on what we are strong at — and that is being African.
No one travels across the seas to Africa to see Europe or America. They all come to savour Africa, so let’s serve them Africa. Our biggest shortcoming in this regard is that Africa is missing in the design and presentation of our service offering to the tourists.
Over the past years, tourism trends have indicated an increased interest of foreign tourists to African cultures fused together with nature, as compared to the near-absolute focus on the latter in earlier years.
African cultures are fascinating, inspiring and classic in their expression.
Our tourists should be exposed to African symbols, patterns and artistic expressions in the decor and structural designs that surround them and they should get the right interpretations of the same from our people.
As the hosts we need to be able to open the visitors’ eyes and minds to be able to recognise and appreciate the principles of African aesthetics.
When people come to Africa, they aspire to experience Africa, to see things from the African view-point and to have a deep immersive, soul-level interaction with the motherland.
If such an aspiration is handled by the right people, the visitor will have a sense of satisfaction that they have been home and in touch with the mother of humanity and that feeling is priceless.
This kind of a feeling is resultant from a well guided experience. When the foreign tourists view the Big Five animals in Africa, they need to see and understand them as an African would.
They need to appreciate what these animals mean to the African and how we interact with them.
This is a very important dimension of African tourism that has been missed by numerous of our tourism players — the experience has to change the person.
This calls for our tourism and hospitality training institutions and licensing authorities for tour-guides, culinary practitioners and other relevant trades within the industry to deliver customised programmes that resonate with African identity.
It is the duty of the host (be it the tour guide, guest relations officer or anyone involved in customer service in a tourism establishment) to walk the visitor through the mystique path of discovery and connection with Africa and then take them to the depths and heights of human thought and to stir the emotion that, though they have lived, they have always missed something and yet they have not realised it.
All this can be achieved through the Afrocentric orientation of the narrative shared and the participation of the visitors in activities and processes that not only give them a clear understanding of the African world-view but also endears them to Africa the place and Africa the people.
It is through such eye and mind opening experiences that the world will become awake to the fact that Africa is not “the dark continent” but it is colourful and anchors all hope and aspiration for humanity.
For others to see our beauty, we need to begin to appreciate it ourselves. Tourism is a powerful branding tool that is capable of positively influencing perceptions and attitudes of the world towards Africa. It follows therefore that Africa should be presented to the world by those who do not only know about Africa but those who are an embodiment of the African world-view, hopes and aspirations and have a umbilical connection with Africa.
The African hosts/ guides should carry themselves with pride to be African and make the world crave for it.
- Phineas Chauke is a Tourism Consultant, Marketer and Tour-Guide contactable on email: [email protected] and mobile number +263776058523
