Strategic Diversification Vital for Southern Africa’s Tourism Growth

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Southern Africa tourism investment is attracting serious global money, but the region risks squandering its momentum by putting too many eggs in one basket. At the Africa Tourism Investment Conference held alongside WTM Africa in Cape Town, experts from UN Tourism, JLL Africa, Africa’s Eden, and political analysis sounded a clear alarm: the continent is drawing billions, but deep structural vulnerabilities could undermine the gains.

The numbers are striking: in 2024 alone, Africa attracted over US$50 billion in foreign direct investment. Since 2019, the continent has attracted 105 green-field tourism projects worth US$6.6 billion, generating more than 15,100 direct jobs. “The top investors in Africa are the US, China, Spain, UAE, Morocco and France, the main destinations for tourism. FDI are South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania, Tunisia, Kenya and Nigeria,” said Michelle Masperi, Project Specialist at UN Tourism

Those are impressive figures, but they mask a troubling concentration. Hotels, resorts, and branded chains absorb 90% of all tourism FDI on the continent, leaving virtually nothing for the sectors that could future-proof the industry.

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Southern Africa’s Tourism Investment Is Too Narrowly Focused

South Africa is the largest recipient of tourism FDI on the continent. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe round out a region that pairs extraordinary wildlife with compelling cultural heritage. Together, they form one of the world’s most recognisable tourism corridors. The problem is that the region leans almost entirely on what it already does best.

Bernadine Galliver, Head of Tourism Advisory at JLL Africa, put it plainly at a dedicated seminar on tourism readiness across the four nations: “There’s a very high reliance or dependence on the leisure pillar, particularly on safari as the main tourism offering and nature-based tourism as the anchor for the leisure pillar of the destinations. Also, this presents a risk because they have all their eggs in one basket. So, if something comes along to undo that basket, it is obviously a risk to the destination.”

Saturation in safari and wildlife experiences is already visible. Meanwhile, cultural tourism, adventure offerings, and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) infrastructure lag badly behind demand. The region has world-class natural assets. What it lacks is the investment architecture to diversify around them.

UN Tourism’s data reinforces this gap. The report calls for the region to move urgently into investment-ready niches: urban tourism, gastronomy, wellness, coastal and maritime experiences, sports tourism, religious and diaspora travel. These are not fringe ideas. They represent the next wave of global tourism demand, and Southern Africa is currently missing most of it.

The Obstacles Blocking Southern Africa Tourism Investment

The barriers are real and well-documented. Galliver identified five core challenges that actively discourage foreign investors from committing to tourism projects across the continent.

Urban infrastructure deficits sit at the top. A functioning tourism economy depends on reliable roads, water, energy and connectivity, and many African cities cannot guarantee them. Restrictive policy and legislative environments compound the problem, creating friction at every stage of the investment process. Then there is the absence of long-term tourism development strategies, which signals inconsistency to investors who plan over decades. Limited resilience and sustainability planning further call into question whether destinations can weather economic, climatic, or political shocks.

The fifth obstacle may be the most overlooked: the near-total absence of reliable tourism data. “Anyone who works in tourism and hospitality on this continent will know that it’s a major challenge getting good-quality data and finding information about the performance of the sector,” said Galliver. I would hazard a guess that, if an investor wants to know something, they want to find it easily and they want the answer to their questions without spending six months searching around for basic tourism statistics.”

Investors make decisions based on information. When the data doesn’t exist or when accessing it demands months of effort, many investors simply move on. Africa is not just competing with itself; it also competes against destinations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America that can deliver on-demand market intelligence.

Southern African Tourism Investment Must Start Within Africa Itself

There is another dimension to this challenge that rarely enters the conversation. Daniel Silke, Director of Political Futures Consultancy, argued that Africa’s fixation on attracting external capital obscures a more fundamental problem: the continent underinvests in itself.

“We don’t trade enough with ourselves. One day, I would like to see Africans trading with each other rather than solely prioritising the promotion of the African economy to other parts of the world,” said Silke. 

He went further, arguing that deeper intra-African integration across travel, aviation, and finance could make the continent’s economies far more resilient to global disruptions. “Whether it’s from a travel, aviation or finance perspective, this could be the core driving feature for Africa and make its markets more shock-absorbent to the changes in the world.”

This is not a call to abandon foreign investment. It is a call to stop treating it as the only answer. A tourism economy built on African capital, African travellers, and African demand would be structurally different and structurally stronger than one built entirely on the preferences of overseas investors and visitors.

What Southern Africa Tourism Investment Must Do Next

The path forward requires action on multiple fronts simultaneously. Infrastructure investment, especially in secondary cities and rural corridors, must accelerate. Governments need to streamline the regulatory environments that currently repel sophisticated investors. Long-term tourism master plans with clear data, measurable milestones, and built-in resilience frameworks need to move from discussion to implementation.

On the product side, the imperative to diversify is urgent. MICE infrastructure, cultural experiences, wellness retreats, adventure tourism, and coastal development are all areas where investor appetite exists, but supply does not. Each niche represents a different traveller profile, so diversification is a risk management strategy.

Perhaps most critically, African tourism stakeholders need to treat data as infrastructure. Market intelligence, sector performance benchmarks, and investor-ready feasibility data should be publicly accessible and consistently updated. Right now, the information gap acts as an invisible tax on every potential deal.

Southern Africa holds extraordinary assets. Its wildlife, landscapes, cultures, and communities have drawn visitors for generations. The investment community has noticed. What the region must now demonstrate is that it can translate interest into diversified, resilient, long-term economic development, not just more hotels in the same locations serving the same market segments. The money is circling. The question is whether the systems, policies, and vision are in place to land it.

Explore more stories on tourism investment, African economies, and hospitality sector trends right here on the site.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) And Answers

How much foreign direct investment does African tourism attract?

Africa attracted over US$50 billion in total FDI in 2024. Since 2019, the continent has specifically drawn 105 greenfield tourism projects worth US$6.6 billion, creating more than 15,100 direct jobs, according to UN Tourism data.

Which countries receive the most tourism FDI in Africa?

The top destinations for tourism-related foreign direct investment are South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania, Tunisia, Kenya, and Nigeria. The leading investor nations are the US, China, Spain, the UAE, Morocco, and France.

Why is over-reliance on safari a problem for Southern Africa’s tourism sector?

Safari and nature-based tourism currently dominate the leisure offering in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This concentration creates vulnerability; any disruption to wildlife tourism (disease, geopolitical instability, climate events) could devastate entire national tourism economies with few alternative revenue streams to fall back on.

What are the biggest obstacles to tourism investment in Africa?

Experts at the Africa Tourism Investment Conference identified five main barriers: weak urban infrastructure, restrictive regulatory environments, the absence of long-term development strategies, limited resilience and sustainability planning, and a critical shortage of reliable tourism market data.

Why does intra-African trade matter for the tourism sector?

Greater trade and economic integration within Africa would reduce the tourism sector’s dependence on foreign investors and international visitors. A stronger intra-African travel market would also make the continent’s tourism economies more resilient to global shocks: recessions, pandemics, and geopolitical shifts that disproportionately affect destinations reliant on long-haul visitors.