Rabat – The African Development Club and the Ivorian Bank Company organized this April 20-22 a meeting under the title “Investment Opportunities in the Tourism Sector”.
The meeting, attended by the Ivorian Minister of Tourism, Siandou Fofana, and the Director General of the Moroccan National Tourist Office, Abderrafie Zouiten, gathered more than 200 personalities from the Ivorian economic world and the African Development Club from Cameroon, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, and Chad.
The Moroccan Ambassador in Côte d’Ivoire, Abdelmalek Kettani, took part in the conference. During this conference, Fofana outlined the new Ivorian tourism strategy as well as the opportunities the sector offers for national and international investors.
Minister Fofana’s 2020 vision is to make Cote d’Ivoire a leading tourist hub on the West African level and to make the tourism sector the 3rd pole of the Ivorian economy. Accordingly, an investment plan of several hundred billion FCFA was planned and several ambitious projects that were presented. These include the Jacqueville amusement park, hotel facilities in the main provincial towns, a water park in Assinie, and an animal park in Bingerville.
In addition, the minister urged the operators of the sector to become more proactive while ensuring that they play their part with appropriate reforms and organizational frameworks. In this regard, the DG of the ONMT, Zouiten, presented the experience of Morocco and its strategy of differentiation in relation to the global offer.
Zouiten therefore addressed the requirements for establishing a successful and sustainable tourism economy, in particular making tourist areas with a rapid transport network and the employment of modern media and marketing strategies. He also stressed the need to create a tourism sector in line with Ivorian values and environment in order to have a serious competitive advantage.
The Ivorian tourism strategy is based on three main axes: destination promotion, development of supply and hotel industry capacity, and investment levers. Thus, the Director-General of Côte d’Ivoire Tourism, Jean Marie Somet, shared the main thrust of Côte d’Ivoire’s promotion policy, presenting the current potential of the country and the socio-economic impact of Ivorian tourism, also emphasizing the importance of domestic tourism.
As for the President of the National Federation of the Tourism Industry of Côte d’Ivoire, Mamadou Diomandé, he spoke about existing investments and potentials that present themselves to investors in different regions of the country. Diomande highlighted the need for genuine public-private collaboration for a stronger contribution of tourism in Côte d’Ivoire’s overall development, particularly in rural areas, while exposing the difficulties faced by operators in this context.
