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Africa:
A continent with over 5O Separate Travel
Destinations
by Jerry W.
Bird
 Quick
Now! When you think of Africa, what image comes to
mind? Do you visualize a luxury tented camp near
Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania? Do you see an elegant,
Orient-Express class railway coach sailing through
a grassy sea? Is a world class United Nations
Convention Center and 90 foreign embassies your
idea of Addis Ababa? How about a Manhattan skyline
in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa? Believe it!
The state of the art facilities in hotels, resorts,
lodges, and meeting places for tourists and
business visitors in many African countries
shatters the myths and blows away most preconceived
notions of today's visitor. So does the
Transatlantic service of Africa based airlines,
SAA, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Afrique and Ghana
Airways.
 Another
monster myth is the price tag. Thanks to fleet
expansion and alliances, getting to Africa from the
USA is easier and cheaper for your clients than
ever. Just ask anyone from the Africa Travel
Association (ATA) who has flown there lately. The
Association escorted 10 travel writers on a tour of
Ethiopia's Historic Route last year, and the
stories that resulted were 100 per cent positive.
A
new Business Travel and Investment magazine
that will be available starting in 2001 as a
combination package to subscribers of Africa Travel
Magazine. Watch this site for news of its editorial
menu.
Africa
Travel Association (ATA) Builds Bridges to
Africa
When 500
delegates convene in Cape Town, South Africa, May
20-25, 2001, they'll be toasting ATA's 26th
International Congress. Of course, it will be with
the finest Cape wines. As a nonprofit, nonpolitical
organization, ATA's membership is comprised of
government ministers, tourist board officials, tour
operators, travel agency, hotel, airline, marketing
and media executives, educators and group
organizers. ATA's mandate is to educate its
membership, teaching agents about changing consumer
demands, how to market new African products,
packages and destinations effectively, and why
cultural, educational and ecotourism is gaining
such popularity in America. Niche markets are
foremost - adventure travelers, seniors, families
on safari, African-Americans seeking cultural
heritage, budding archaeologists, history buffs,
sports lovers, the meetings and incentive trade -
you name it. ATA teaches agents how to spot new
trends and cash in early.
Africa Travel Association's Global Perspective
"The
Association has achieved a global position in the
travel industry through alliances that are far
reaching in scope," says in Mira Berman, ATA
Executive Director, "My predecessor Hagos Legesse
and our founder, the late Murray Vidockler, paved
the way." A true 'giant' among Travel Agents,
Vidockler launched British Caledonian Airways;
provided 500 buses for Martin Luther King's
Washington address, founded the Africa Travel
Association in 1975, and stands tall in the ASTA
Hall of Fame. Another stalwart is the late Fred
Fuller, who helped forge a partnership with the
Association of Retail Travel Agents. ATA is also a
member of (ASTA) American Society of Travel Agents,
the (WTO) World Tourism Organization and a "Green
Globe" member.
ATA's founder also
established SATH, now called the Society for
Accessible Travel for Handicapped and Mature. More
recently ATA became allied with (IIPT)
International Institute for Peace Through Tourism
as a founding member of the Coalition of Partners.
ATA's President Mike A. Gizo, Tourism Minister of
Ghana, was featured speaker at Global Peace
Convention in Scotland and the first Global Summit
on Peace Through Tourism in Jordan, November, 2000.
This year's ATA Congress has invited both partner
organizations to be on the program in order to
broaden the delegates perspective on
travel.
What stands out
like a beacon, is the number of African Tourism
Ministers who are active in ATA's operations and
affairs. Being non political seems to bring out the
best in everyone. These leaders' hands-on approach,
sets a fine example for their counterparts in other
countries seeking to build a viable tourism sector.
They get into shirtsleeve sessions with the rank
and file, and know how to speak the language of
marketing. The content from December's Ecotourism
Symposium in Abuja, Nigeria was overwhelming in its
scope. This and similar material from past
Congresses, points out how serious Africans are
about creating Peace and Success via
tourism.
How
does ATA benefit Travel
Agents?
• Profitability: Learn how to profit from
higher commissions of a long-haul.
• Professional Seminars on selling Africa to
special interest markets.
• Networking: Key contacts, Tourist Boards,
hoteliers and ground operators.
• Experiences: See more of Africa, local
culture and customs first hand.
• Education: Destination Seminars on Africa's
diverse tourism products.
• Marketing: More products, niche markets,
seniors, youth, African-Americans, etc.
• Social: Attend Congresses and Symposia of
World Importance.
ATA
Chapters: Like a University for Travel Agents
"The need
for education on Africa is widespread and growing
like wildfire, " says Muguette Goufrani, Associate
Editor of Africa Travel Magazine, who fields daily
inquiries from prospective members on the ATA web
site. Having been a Travel Agent in North and West
Africa, Muguette sees the potential. "Africa's a
hot item. Living north of Seattle on the Pacific
Coast, we're about as long haul as one can be. Yet
every time our ATA Chapter hosts an Africa Night,
we get a full house. The densely populated
Portland- Seattle-Vancouver Corridor and the
Pacific Rim area which it touches, is fertile
ground to grow a garden of new ATA chapters. It's
rich multicultural mix is like the United Nations.
"
Speaking of ATA
benefits, Mike Madison of Arbor Travel, President
of Southern California Chapter says, "It's
increased my knowledge of Africa, and given me an
opportunity to meet African Tourism Board officials
and form lasting networks. Now there are Africans I
can contact when I have a tour group; people who
are in a position to do something." His colleague,
Eunice Rawlings of Africa Travel & Trade Bureau
added, "When I first joined ATA in 1980, I could
not have imagined the rich and rewarding journey I
would take as I was introduced to Africa through
informative dinner seminars and annual congresses
on the African continent. Aside from the networking
opportunities that ATA offers, the added benefit
has been meeting and making lifelong friends with
the nicest people on earth both in USA and in
Africa."
It's amazing what a
nonprofit and nonpolitical organization can do when
its goals are well defined. Being non political,
ATA is well positioned to bring tourism news about
Africa to the world, while teaching and practicing
tolerance. It's voice is Africa Travel Magazine,
which targets travel agents in the United States
and Canada. This year, with the ATA Web Site having
passed the 300 page mark, as Africa's message is
broadcast worldwide and around the clock. Web site:
www.africa-ata.org.
Africa Travel
Association:
347 Fifth Avenue, #610 New York, NY, USA 10016
(212) 447-1926, fax (212) 725-8253
e-mail africatravelasso@aol.com
African
Wildlife
Foundation
For more than 40 years, the African Wildlife
Foundation (AWF) has focused exclusively on the
continent of Africa. Through these years AWF has
played a major role in ensuring the continued
existence of some of Africa's most rare and
treasured species such as the elephant, the
mountain gorilla, rhinoceros and cheetah. AWF has
invested training and resources in African
individuals and institutions that have gone on to
play critical roles in conservation. We have
significantly increased scientific understanding of
Africa's extraordinary ecosystems through research.
We have pioneered the use of community conservation
and conservation enterprise to demonstrate that
wildlife can be conserved while people's well being
is also improved. We have provided crucial
assistance to national parks and reserves and
promoted international cooperation to protect
important sites and populations that stretch across
national boundaries.
African
Heartlands Program
The essential need
to conserve Africa's remaining vital ecosystems
inspired AWF to mark a new era in African
conservation by establishing the African Heartlands
Program in 1998. Heartlands are large, cohesive
conservation landscapes which are biologically
important and have the scope to maintain healthy
populations of wild species and natural processes
well into the future. They also form a sizable
economic unit in which tourism or other natural
resource-based activities can contribute
significantly to the livelihoods of people living
in the area. Most of the African Heartlands include
a combination of government lands (like national
parks) community-owned lands, and lands owned by
individuals or the private sector.
AWF has performed
extensive scientific research and feasibility
studies to select and prioritize Africa's most
viable conservation landscapes. In these vast
conservation landscapes, which frequently cross
national boundaries, AWF works with local partners
to undertake concrete activities that protect more
land for conservation while mitigating threats to
these valuable resources.
Seven Heartlands
have been initially identified: Four Corners
(Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia);
Kilimanjaro (Kenya and Tanzania); Limpopo
(Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe); Maasai
Steppe (Tanzania); Samburu (Kenya); Virunga
(Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of
Congo); and Zambezi (Zimbabwe, Zambia and
Mozambique).
Education and
African Leadership Program
From the beginning,
AWF has believed that Africans are the ideal
stewards of Africa's natural resources. This core
belief led AWF to found the first school to train
African wildlife managers in Tanzania in 1961.
During its early decades, AWF helped to establish
and support wildlife clubs in several African
countries to help raise the awareness and interest
of a new generation in the importance of
conservation. AWF has also provided scholarships
and educated hundreds of Africans in conservation
studies to assure the survival of Africa's wildlife
heritage.
Today over 80% of
AWF's staff are African professionals. Dr. Helen
Gichohi, an ecologist from Kenya, is head of AWF's
conservation programs in Africa; Dr. Philip
Muruthi, a Princeton educated zoologist, is AWF's
chief scientist; Mr. Alfred Kikoti, a former park
warden, is now extending Cynthia Moss's elephant
research across the border into the west
Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania; Mr. Eugène
Rutagarama, working under the AWF-funded
International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP),
risked his life during civil war in Rwanda to
secure the safety of the Virungas' fragile mountain
gorilla population, a distinction acknowledged when
he recently received the prestigious Goldman
Award.
AWF's commitment to
developing and supporting Africa's future
conservation leaders, led to the creation of the
Charlotte Conservation Fellowship. This scholarship
program honors the memory of longtime AWF supporter
Charlotte Kidder Ramsay by providing educational
grants to Africans pursuing advanced degree studies
in conservation-related fields.
Critical Species
Research and Conservation Program
Over the past four
decades, AWF has supported some of the most
respected and important research projects on the
continent including those of Dian Fossey, Jane
Goodall and Cynthia Moss. AWF continues its
tradition of support to important research with an
emphasis on research projects which directly
address conservation management problems and
human-wildlife conflicts. These projects
include:
* Elephants. AWF
supports important elephant research and
conservation in many of the savanna Heartlands
where they occur. Recent research has focused on
the use of the landscape and corridors by
elephants.
* International
Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP). A joint
initiative of AWF, Fauna and Flora International
and the World Wide Fund for Nature aimed at
conservation and research of mountain gorillas and
their afromontane habitat. This acclaimed effort is
largely credited for having saved this critically
endangered species despite the tragic civil
disturbances of recent years in the region.
* Rhino
Conservation. AWF has provided support for rhino
conservation in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and
Namibia. Priority has been given to testing
different strategies and technologies such as
sanctuaries and radio collars for protecting and
increasing the numbers of this highly endangered
animal.
* Predators. AWF
provides support to a number of projects for the
protection of endangered predators including the
cheetah, the African hunting dog and the Ethiopian
wolf. We also support a several studies that take a
unique approach to understanding how communities of
predators such as lion, leopard and hyena coexist
in the same ecosystems.
Conservation
Enterprise
AWF has established
strategically located Conservation Centers
throughout Africa. Staffed with an unparalleled
team of enterprise specialists, these specialists
offer expertise in business planning, law and
community development. Overall, AWF specialists
assist rural communities who live with wildlife to
establish enterprises related to conservation.
Wildlife then becomes a welcome asset rather than a
costly nuisance to local people.
Conservation
related enterprises in Africa are frequently
concessions for wildlife safaris, ecotourism
lodges, walking safaris and camps. Other
enterprises that AWF has fostered include the
production of honey from protected forests, sale of
local handicrafts to tourists and the marketing and
export of bush products
http://www.awf.org/
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