1. Introduction
Tourism is one of the most important industries in the world, and tourism in Africa is growing much faster than in most parts of the world. Its contribution was 8.5% of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 [
1,
2]. Tourism supported 9.1 million direct jobs [
1] and 24.3 million jobs including induced impacts [
3] in Africa, and the continent received around 5% of the estimated 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals in 2018. Even though tourism is firmly established in many developed economies, Africa is only beginning to realize its full potential, accounting for only 1% of the USD 1.7 trillion global tourism revenue [
3], and only 5% of all tourists arriving globally in 2018 [
4]. Recent years have shown the vulnerability of tourism to events restricting mobility, such as the COVID pandemic in 2020–2021 and terrorist attacks, leading to a decrease in tourism spending and contraction of the economy in the short term and long term [
5,
6]. Although the countries of the African continent have experienced exponential growth in tourism since the 1970s, this growth in arrivals has not been reflected in economic, social or environmental benefits for host communities [
2].
The countries of East Africa view tourism development not only as a key component of national economic development but also as a mechanism to alleviate poverty, generate foreign revenue for the government and contribute to wildlife conservation [
7]. East Africa is one of the major tourism destinations in Africa, and natural resources are among its most important tourism appeals [
1]; for its geography, see
Figure 1. However, local communities in the most attractive nature-based destinations rarely benefit that much from tourism, despite their crucial role in the sustainable management of these areas. Several case studies have explored the benefits of tourism, such as those by Tekalign et al. [
8] about Ethiopia, Iacopino et al. [
9] about Uganda, Juma and Khademi-Vidra [
2] about Kenya and Melubo et al. [
10] about Tanzania. In South Africa, farmers have benefited by converting their agricultural farms to private game farms [
11] for tourism purposes. The results from Tanzania [
10,
12] and Kenya [
13] are more mixed. Several studies [
14,
15,
16] have attempted to quantify the economic benefits of tourism-related activities in rural communities, but data are scarce with results relating to specific communities instead of nationwide analyses [
17].
In Africa, tourism attractions are mainly based on natural endowments (scenic landscapes, wildlife, coastal beaches, etc.), history, arts, crafts, dance and a myriad of cultural attributes. Wildlife may offer opportunities for supplementary—or even main—income generation for the rural population and may provide an alternative to livestock production. Eastern and Southern African rangelands are famous for giving home to a great variety and abundance of wildlife, including large mammals, such as elephants, rhinos, zebras, lions, giraffes and many other species. After sharp declines in wildlife between 1970 and 1990 across Africa, several countries introduced incentives for sport hunting and ecotourism. National parks and protected areas play crucial roles in maintaining African wildlife populations, and their numbers and areas have also increased significantly over the past 50 years [
18].
Although sustainability principles apply to all types of tourism activities, their significance is outstanding for the various forms of nature-based tourism. Nature tourism means travelling to unspoiled places to experience and enjoy nature. It involves moderate and safe forms of exercise such as hiking, biking, sailing and camping. Wildlife tourism is a form of nature tourism, where the main attraction is to watch animals, birds and fish in their native habitats [
19]. This type of tourism has shown sharp growth in recent years, and the tourism industry often uses the term “wildlife tourism” rather than wildlife-watching tourism, although wildlife tourism is sometimes also used to include hunting or fishing tourism. Wildlife watching overlaps with ecotourism [
20], responsible travel to natural areas, that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people [
21].
Wildlife watching is a major attraction for international tourists globally and in Africa. In 2018, wildlife tourism directly contributed USD 120 billion to the world GDP, while its total contribution was three times this value (USD 343.6 billion), i.e., 3.9% of the tourism-generated GDP. However, in Africa, the respective figures are outstanding, with USD 29.3 billion generated directly by wildlife tourism, producing more than one-third (36.3%) of the continent’s travel and tourism GDP, while the total wildlife-tourism-generated GDP reached USD 70.6 billion USD—including international and domestic tourism too. Kenya’s protected areas were visited by 2.9 m people in 2018, of which about 700 thousand were international tourists, i.e., half of the foreign visitors experienced some wildlife tourism activity. Wildlife tourism is estimated to provide about 70% of tourism earnings and more than 10% of total employment in the country. In Tanzania, roughly 1.9 million ecotourism visitors were recorded in 2018, and about 46% of all international tourists—i.e., more than 600 thousand people—experienced some wildlife activity [
22].
Wildlife-watching tourism generates income from payments for entrance and permit fees by tourists to visit wildlife-watching sites, and to the guides, drivers and other staff who may accompany them. Tourists also pay for accommodation and other services to travel to and stay at wildlife-watching sites, and these visits also allow them to visit other areas of the country to see other attractions such as a country’s heritage and culture [
20]. The key features of the analyzed countries are shown in
Table 1.
Natural and cultural heritage sites are major tourism attractions worldwide. Many studies have established that natural and cultural heritage sites are core tourism attractions, leading to increased visitor numbers and tourism receipts [
26,
27]. Cultural heritage includes first of all tangible heritage, including buildings, architecture and art, and objects, and intangible heritage such as gastronomy or traditional food and drink [
28], as well as intangible historical resources [
29], and many other attractions. Both cultural and natural resources can contribute to enhanced visitor numbers and spending, though countries differ widely in this respect. European, Latin-American and Caribbean countries tend to mainly benefit from their cultural world heritage, while African and North American countries benefit more from their natural resources [
30]. The African continent is particularly rich in unique cultural and natural resources, many of which are listed as World Heritage Sites [
10,
14]. In 1972, UNESCO defined cultural heritage, for the purpose of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, as three groups of (a) monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; (b) groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings, which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; and (c) sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites that are of outstanding universal value from historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view [
31]. According to Brumann, cultural heritage includes the sites, things and practices a society regards as old, important and worthy of conservation [
32]. Historically, the concept of cultural heritage developed from the interest in and attributed values given to monuments, artifacts, works of art, landscapes and other tangible elements, along with the intangible components, together representing identities in terms of culture and natural surroundings [
33]. This change is well reflected in the current UNESCO definition [
34]. In 2012 UNESCO adopted the text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and defined the intangible elements as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or traditional craftsmanship [
35]. Tangible and intangible cultural heritage not only coexist but are often inseparable [
36] (
Figure 2).
The intangible attributes together with the physical artifacts characterize and identify the distinctiveness of a society [
38]. According to the report of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, cultural heritage goes beyond the tangible and intangible aspects to also include natural and cultural heritage, as it is difficult to justify the construction of categories that are too rigid [
39].
Several stakeholders can be identified in cultural heritage management, preservation and utilization. Museums play an important role in preserving objects while making it possible for the public to learn about their importance in society, history and tradition. Monuments, group of buildings often require direct government intervention to ensure their long-term survival [
40], and which might need significant funding. Because of their unique and often irreplaceable nature, and their attributed importance, they raise some economic questions [
41], such as the worth of cultural heritage artifacts, objects, etc., how to finance their preservation and how they can be utilized? If cultural heritage can be considered as an asset, then it has the attributes of goods and services [
42]. In this sense, archaeological heritage combined with labor and other inputs can contribute to the spending of visitors at sites [
38].
UNWTO and UNESCO have singled out cultural heritage tourism as one of the most suitable forms of community development for developing countries, but attention should be paid to sustainability requirements. Historic and cultural sites are appealing to many tourists, and sustainable tourism promotes socio-cultural authenticity while ensuring the optimal use of natural and environmental resources [
43].
Although tourism performance has been widely researched in the way of arrivals, receipts and its contribution to GDP, the relationship of tourism performance to tourism endowments, resources or facilities has not been widely analyzed. Empirical analysis is especially missing in relation to the African continent. The present study aims at bridging this research gap, focusing on the relationship between international tourism revenues and the facilitating factors of the tourism sector in four Eastern African countries. The following research questions are raised:
- Q1:
Do the natural and cultural endowments of the analyzed countries contribute significantly to the performance of tourism in the analyzed countries?
- Q2:
Do the transport and tourism services enhance tourism receipts and arrivals?
- Q3:
Does the revealed comparative advantage of the tourism sector (RCA) reveal the same tendencies as the facilities of the tourism industry (TTCI)?
The motivation for Q2 and Q3 is that RCA (described later in detail) describes the actual performance of the sector, whereas the TTCI reflects the sector’s development possibilities. Our opinion is that although Eastern Africa is rich in cultural and natural attractions, countries in this region cannot fully utilize their endowments, which is partly due to their low level of transport and tourism services, which may make it difficult for international tourists to access the best heritage destinations. Therefore, even if the heritage sites are attractive and highly valued themselves, they cannot be utilized to their capacities and cannot draw as large volumes of international arrivals and receipts to these countries, compared to more developed countries with similar endowments, which is reflected in the relatively moderate RCA values in Eastern Africa.
The structure of this paper is as follows:
Section 2 describes the methodology and the database used for the analysis.
Section 3 presents the results of the statistical analysis, while
Section 4 discusses and explains our findings, reflecting on our research questions. Finally,
Section 5 draws conclusions and explains the limitations and possible further research directions.
4. Discussion
The Tourism and Travel Competitiveness Index (TTCI) measures the factors that make a country attractive for tourism development—i.e., the endowments, infrastructure and institutional system that can generate a successful tourism industry in a country. However, this does not mean that tourism industry is very successful at present but rather points at its potential for development. Ultimately, however, as tourism is one of the fastest developing industries in the world, a high TTCI should sooner or later lead to a profitable and successful tourism sector. The success of an industry in the international market is measured by the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index; therefore, it is reasonable to expect that a developed tourism sector may be reflected in a high RCA and a high TTCI.
Our analysis addressed three particular research questions.
The first focused on revealing the impact of natural and cultural endowments on tourism performance. The correlations of the indicators of such resources with international arrivals, receipts or with the RCA are inconclusive; therefore, these resources do not imply a successful tourism industry. This is somewhat against general expectations.
The second question, namely, the impact of transport and tourism infrastructure on tourism performance, partly explains these strange results, as they are supposed to be important components of the accessibility of destinations for tourists. The correlation analysis showed a strong positive relationship between tourism infrastructure and international arrivals, and panel regressions showed the positive impacts of tourism and transport infrastructures on the RCA, which reflects international tourism revenues. In Africa, and particularly in Eastern Africa, some of the most important endowments are the natural and cultural heritage, i.e., the landscape, wildlife, cultural traditions and built attractions. These are included in the TTCI, together with the quality of the general and transport infrastructure, tourism superstructure, and health and education service, and the development of the tourism-related business sector as described in [
23]. Previous studies [
81] have indicated the priority of tourism infra- and superstructure over natural and cultural appeal in the TTCI, but this may vary by destination. In Africa, these factors are not particularly strong; therefore, with targeted development, natural and cultural attractions may play a more important role. As former studies [
48] showed, relying on the TTCI results of 137 in 2019, the average score of natural resources was 3.15, much smaller than in our case, and of cultural resources was 2.23, which is slightly larger than in our case. Tourism service infrastructure and ground transport infrastructure also scored at least 1 point higher on average than in our case. As [
62] indicates, the overall TTCI was considerably lower in sub-Saharan countries than in our countries. Our correlation analysis showed a strong positive correlation between the TTCI and ground transport infrastructure, and between the TTCI and the natural resources of the analyzed countries. Tourism infrastructure and cultural resources, however, were unrelated to the TTCI—indicating that the tourism potential of Eastern Africa mainly depends on its rich natural endowments, and on the accessibility of the major attractions by ground transport facilities. The panel regression models reveal that the natural and cultural resources of the analyzed countries have different impacts on the RCA. The natural resources have a positive significant impact, i.e., better natural endowments contribute to a higher RCA in both Model 2 and Model 3. Cultural endowments have a more complicated impact. When the impact of tourism infrastructure was taken into the model without transport infrastructure (Model 2), cultural endowments were found to be irrelevant for the RCA. On the other hand, when ground transport infrastructure was also included as a predictor (Model 3), cultural resources showed a strong negative impact. Tourism infrastructure was shown to have a positive effect only when it was analyzed without ground transport infrastructure, but in Model 3, it became insignificant when transport was also considered with significant positive impacts on the RCA. This indicates that tourism services are less important than transport facilities, which is reasonable when the major attractions are in remote areas, as is the case with natural heritage. The interaction of ground transport infrastructure with natural resources showed a negative effect, diminishing somewhat the independent positive impacts of these two factors. Ground transport infrastructure interacted with cultural resources, adding a significant positive impact on the RCA, which means that cultural resources can have a positive effect on the RCA only if the transport infrastructure is good. Our results show somewhat similar findings to those of [
47], in which natural resources were also found to be a significant positive factor in general economic competitiveness in sub-Saharan Africa, together with tourism infrastructure, while cultural resources were insignificant. As [
56] mentions, natural resources are the main driving factors for Chinese tourists travelling to South-East Asia, revealed in RCA values too. As both Model 2 and Model 3 underline, natural resources considerably enhance the RCA values of competitive advantage measured by the share of tourism receipts, and the availability of tourism services and transport facilities are also positive factors. The impact of cultural resources is, at the same time, more controversial, as their utilization in income generation may depend on convenience factors, such as transport, food and accommodation services.
Our third research question aimed at revealing whether the RCA and TTCI show the same pattern, i.e., whether success in the tourism market parallels the facilities of the destinations. Considering previous results in this context, Le [
60] also assessed the RCA and the TTCI and its components for selected Asian countries, and they concluded that tourism exports are driven by different factors for different countries, with natural and cultural resources being the leading ones for some, while infrastructure is the leading factor for others. However, the authors assessed the TTCI and the RCA separately, without making any attempts to assess their connections. Our analysis showed that the four analyzed countries have very high RCA values based on tourism revenues. Other studies [
59,
60] showed that similarly high values are rather rare in Asia and occur mostly with outstanding rich natural resources. The tourism potential, however, does not readily translate into higher visitor numbers, higher revenues and higher revealed comparative advantages. In our research, the TTCI does not correlate with the number of international visitors, and its correlation with the RCA—based on tourism receipts—is not significant when analyzed countrywide, with it being significantly negative when data are pooled. This means that relatively fewer tourism revenues are collected in destinations where there are better tourism opportunities. This is also reflected in the first panel regression with the TTCI being the predictor and the RCA the dependent variable. The impact of the TTCI was found to be negative on the RCA, meaning that a smaller TTCI leads to a higher RCA and vice versa. This result is rather confusing, and the explanation may be found in the complex structure of the TTCI, with it being the weighted average of many components. However, [
58] also found differences in the ranking of Baltic states by RCA and by the TTCI between 2002 and 2011. Recently, [
48] also underlined that the TTCI as an indicator of tourism potential does not coincide with the efficiency of tourism performance, as many countries fail to exploit their endowments. Their results were based only on 2019, and our analysis reveals similar results in a 13-year-long time scale.
As a summary, we can say that the TTCI may not capture all the factors that make a less developed African country appealing to the global tourism market. As the breakdown of the TTCI to its components reveals, the appeal of cultural heritage, in particular, seems to be undervalued. The core attraction of these countries is nature-based tourism, with exotic wildlife flourishing in wild, nomadic environments, and this can considerably contribute to tourism receipts and the revealed competitive advantage. However, as far as cultural heritage is concerned, the transport and tourism infrastructure may be of more relevance in utilizing these resources. However these convenience elements of the developed tourism industry are simply not available to easily access the most attractive cultural sites in Eastern Africa [
82]. The importance of natural and cultural heritage in Eastern Africa deserves a serious reconsideration as the examples of other countries in developing regions show [
83,
84], especially in view of sustainable tourism development.
Currently, as former studies also underline [
48,
60], a considerable gap exists between the tourism capacities (components of the TTCI) and the reality of tourism performance (as measured by the RCA), which should be bridged, and the present study is a step in this direction.
5. Conclusions
The relationship between tourism and national income generation is quite complex. It is dependent on many factors, including tourism service facilities and transport infrastructure, as well as natural and cultural attractions. The natural and cultural heritage of a country is the foundation for attracting tourists, but without accessibility and food and accommodation services, the tourist numbers and tourism receipts remain moderate. Governments usually make great efforts to advertise their attractions and service facilities to make their country competitive in the global tourism market. Arrivals may often be motivated by promotions about the landscape, wildlife and local unique culture, but the generated visitor numbers may not directly result in competitive tourism revenues.
The tourism endowments of the assessed countries, measured by the natural and cultural heritage components of the TTCI, indicate that natural resources are important enough to be reflected in a higher revealed comparative advantage, i.e., competitive tourism revenues, while cultural heritage cannot be utilized in the same way. Tourists coming for natural attractions such as wildlife watching, or to enjoy the outstanding, exotic landscape, are often prepared for rough transport and accommodation services, usually viewing these as part of the adventure. However, tourists coming with the motivation of cultural heritage visits, tend to associate cultural heritage sites with more developed, civilized environments, located in the vicinity of urban areas, and generally better serviced by transport, accommodation and food provisions. Therefore, the lack of these may influence cultural tourists negatively, driving them toward cultural destinations elsewhere that are better serviced.
Tourism services and transport facilities also positively influence international tourism receipts leading to competitive advantage. Better infrastructure often initiates longer stays and a willingness to pay more for the higher quality service provisions. Higher tourism spending in the destination leads to higher direct financial benefits for the local tourism industry, and contribute to higher tax payments from international tourism chains operating in the destination. Induced tourism revenues for non-tourism industries are also enhanced. Therefore, to become competitive in the cultural tourism market, the tourism industry has to provide better services than what is necessary for the destinations relying on natural attractions, although natural heritage destinations also benefit from infrastructural developments. These facts have important policy implications: first, that natural resources should be managed in a sustainable way to preserve the natural heritage in the long run. Second, that transport and tourism service facilities are important factors for international tourist flows; therefore, their maintenance and development cannot be neglected even in the remote, distant regions of exquisite natural attractions. Third, cultural resources of the region do not currently contribute as much to tourism revenues as they should, and further research is needed to identify the reasons for this fact, and the methods to fully utilize its potential. Africa in general, and Eastern Africa in particular, is rich in natural and cultural heritage, and the exploitation of these resources has been viewed as the main way out of poverty. The quality of the basic tourism-related services should thus be a crucial element in making these countries more competitive in the global tourism market, and this requires investment in physical infrastructure, as well as in human resource development and in the international promotion of the major destinations of the region.
The limitations of the present study include the relatively short time series of 7 years per country, due to the availability of TTCI data series. Another weakness may be the limited set of predictor variables—mainly the variables describing the natural and cultural heritages of the countries. A further possible development may be the analysis at not only national level but at the level of sub-national regions, although data availability makes this difficult at the moment. Finally, the analysis could be further refined by adding control variables to the models that incorporate the general economic and social conditions of the countries separately.