tawandamusarurwa
Tourism
Charles Mavhunga
SOUTHERN African Development Community (SADC) member states must be highly vigilant in tourism branding to drive performance at the global level, given the historical facts of colonialism and imperialism.
Tourism branding encompasses the name, visual identity, tone of voice, experiences and activities of tourism organisations.
The colonial system created a mixed bag of domination that distorted the cultural values of the people in the SADC region such that the African brand in the tourism industry is not well-articulated.
In African society, the standards that guide the behaviour of every member include the values of hospitality, chastity before marriage, truthfulness, respect for old age, covenant-keeping, hard work, good character and the spirit of Ubuntu.
These values form the African brand that defines member states in the SADC region, but the domination of colonialism worked to destroy these features and formed a mixed bag of cultures that seem to be causing political and social disorder on the continent.
It must be noted that different Western countries colonised member states in the SADC region. The dominating cultural value of the colonial master distorted the African culture of Ubuntu, which SADC must work hard to restore.
For example, member states that were colonised by the British, namely, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana, among others, adopted the British values and lost their African character of Ubuntu. The French had dominance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As a result, the cultural values of the French people dominated.
The Portuguese dominated in Angola and Mozambique. The cultural values of Portugal ended up dominating in that society. This means SADC is a regional body whose creation reflects a mixed bag of colonial values in the hospitality industry, which demands re-branding to be regarded as truly African in nature.
The dominating values of the French, the British, the German and the Dutch people in South Africa destroyed the brand stature of the African people and created a mixed bag of values and culture.
It is now the responsibility of SADC to re-brand its character through tourism to globalise its African stature. The bloc should play an active role in reconciling the differences in the colonial mixed bag to restore the African cultural values of Ubuntu that should characterise the tourism industry at the global level.
Colonialism had the objective of exploiting resources in Africa, and to destroy the hospitality of the continent. Europeans used the spirit of domination to take over the resources and to destroy African values. The ultimate goal was to remove Africans from the global picture.
European powers used charters from their national governments to seize power from the local leadership in Africa.
The continent’s coastal rulers naturally resisted the encroachments and battled to maintain their status, but were overpowered and lost everything to the European powers.
Europeans met on November 15, 1884 at the Berlin Conference to discuss the partitioning of Africa and strategise on the colonisation objective.
The major score of the conference was the design of a strategy to dissolve the cultural values of the African people to establish loyalty of the African people to the European powers. The colonisers wanted direct access to the hinterland markets by eliminating the African in the trade and economics picture.
Africans became slaves on their own continent and lost their status as a people.
This situation motivated colonialists to directly take control of the economies in African states and to administer the activities of the African people. The new order impoverished Africans to levels beyond imagination, and this is the reason they appear useless in the global world; colonisation destroyed the status of the people.
However, African nationalists regrouped to wage wars to liberate themselves from European control on the continent. This saw colonialists laving Africa unceremoniously, but remnants of the system continue to haunt the continent.
It is against this background that this writer holds the view that SADC must design a strategy to make sure the ideology to remove colonial hangovers in Africa is promoted to protect the region from colonial infiltration.
The African brand is slowly getting restored, but SADC must be highly vigilant in view of the back-door attacks from former colonisers who left the continent unprepared. Africans are characterised by the spirit of Ubuntu, but the European powers seem to hang on to the spirit of dominance and they are trying to influence the character of the African brand.
SADC’s tone must be re-branded to institute an ideology that protects member states from colonial hangovers.
The ideals of the revolution that liberated member states from colonial masters must be pronounced very loudly by SADC to protect the brand from infiltration.
The major issue to consider is that SADC must observe the African interests in terms of tourism brand architecture to become a globalised brand.
Europeans visiting the continent must be able to experience a new culture that is purely African in terms of the political, economic, social and technological stances. This can only be achieved if SADC represents the values of member states from a revolutionary point of view.
Charles Mavhunga co-authored textbooks in business enterprising skills and is currently studying for a PhD in Management at Bindura University. He can be contacted at: [email protected]
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