11/11/2009 Cameroon and Tunisia are countries that can be considered as tourist destinations. But unlike Tunisia that boosts of about five million tourists every year, Cameroon welcomes barely 500.000 tourists every year.
“We are working together to see how tourism can be boosted in Cameroon”, the Minister of Tourism, Baba Hamadou told CRTV shortly after returning from the Cameroon-Tunisia joint commission on tourism.
“Our discussions were fruitful. The Tunisian government agreed to help train our tourists guides in the tourism school we constructed in Kribi”. The minister said.
He further explained that Tunisia will grant scholarships to Cameroon tourism students and extend technical cooperation to Cameroon in the area of tourism.
Cameroon has tremendous touristic potentials that span the length and breathe of the country.
Between the Sahel, equatorial forest, hills, plains, beaches and rivers, Cameroon, a country slightly smaller than France is what Minister Baba Hamadou calls “all Africa in a single country”.
“There is something for everyone, from business tourism in Douala,to sea site resorts in Kribi and Limbe, culture in the west’s traditional chiefdoms, and adventure in the Waza and Dja reserves” the Minister explains.
But these enormous tourist potential have never been matched by a corresponding influx of tourists to the country.
In 2008, only 486.530 tourists visited Cameroon. In 2007, the sector accounted for just 2.5% of the GDP. Those figures may include only hotels and restaurant revenue and not those of travel agencies or transport, but they speak volumes about the challenges facing the sector.
Minister Baba Hamadou says the chronic lack of communication facilities has hampered the development of the tourism sector.
“In the first place, the lack of a national airline is a big drawback,” he told CRTV.
It is however hoped that when CAMAIR-CO a new company set up after the dissolution of CAMAIR goes operational, it would help resolve part of this problem.
The Minister further complained that his ministry’s budget; just five billion CFA francs equivalent to about 2% to 4% of government’s Budget is too small.
“If we want to quadruple promotion, build new sites and strengthen existing infrastructure, over 500 billion CFA francs are necessary. The goal is to draw there millions tourists to Cameroon by 2012” he said.
There are also problems of lodging as Cameroon has a total of 24492 hotel beds but only those with two or three stars can be recommended to tourists. The actual capacity of two or more star hotels is only 14.632 beds in 139 hotels.
Chartered flights are still long in coming, while airline companies operating regular flights charge very high fee.
Minister Baba Hamadou now says the creation of a tourism office, the adoption of a tourism code, increased participation in international exhibitions, development of a public private partnership and the qualitative and qualitative beefing up of tourist staff are some of the measures government has undertaken to boost tourism in the country.
Ngala Killian
