Positive tourism in Africa: resisting Afro-pessimism

At a time when Africa is emerging as the ‘hopeful continent’, and no longer the ‘hopeless continent’, a new kind of tourism analysis is needed – one that resists Afro-pessimism and showcases the progress made in the postcolonial era. The reductionist story which has tended to represent Africa as the Dark Continent must be challenged. For tourism studies, such a cause can be advanced by embracing, as sought in this book, the framework of ‘positive tourism’, a pluralistic quest to understand how tourism creates value for the spectrum of its participants: tourists, hosts, states and economies, at all levels. Value in this sense extends beyond economic or monetary benefits and includes all aspects of personal and collective enrichment (psychological, social, emotional, cultural and environmental). At the same time, it must be noted, ‘positive tourism’ does not claim that tourism, in the African scenario or elsewhere, is without its challenges and negative impacts. Rather, it is about creating plural tourism narratives that are balanced. In the context of this book, ‘positive tourism’ is also about the intentional drive to represent Africa’s tourism endeavours in a positive and optimistic light, without ignoring the many challenges that African countries continue to grapple with