Case study: tourism in Cameroon, the stakeholders engagement. ​(one of my school reports)

 

Case study: tourism in Cameroon, 

the stakeholders engagement ​

DSTS: statistical information systems for tourism 2020/2021 UniFi

Officially the Republic of Cameroon, the country is sometimes identified as West African and other times as Central African, due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa. But it is actually a West-Central African country with more than 250 native languages with an estimate population of 26, 545, 864. The official languages in Cameroon are English and French. The capital is Yaoundé and is located in the south-central part of the country.

Cameroon map is known for its triangular shape and is bordered by Nigeria to the northwest, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, the Republic of the Congo to the southeast, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. Like many African countries, Cameroon's tourism potential remains relatively unknown to the mainstream public. Many travelers still have a confused image of the typical features among tourist continental destinations. Nevertheless, Cameroon stands out with a genuine identity expressing diversity, dynamism and a great balance between modernity and traditions at once.

In short, the country concentrates all the beauties of Africa; which explains why people consider that nobody could really discover Africa without having visited Cameroon. 

Cameroon tourism competitiveness based on OECD indicators 

1. Core indicator:

National tourism action plan 

2. Supplementary indicators:

 Employment in tourism by age, education, level and type of contracts. 

3. Future development indicator:

 Government budget appropriations of tourism

1. Core indicator:​

National Tourism Administration and National Tourism Organizations​

The challenge brought by OECD here is for the stakeholders to make an effort to come up with a collaborative process that involves them hand to hand: community and public administration, as well as gaining agreement on the priorities for actions that can be followed up. For the instance, many strategies can be prepared but fail to deliver key actions and many Action Plans can be agreed but implementation could not be completed.​ 

In Cameroon, the tourism management is performed and ruled by a national tourism administration.​ The Minister of tourism and leisure is responsible for the development and implementation of government policy. As such, he is responsible for:​

- the preparation of draft texts relating to tourism, amusement parks and leisure parks;​

-development of tourism and leisure development strategies and plans;​

-the promotion of domestic tourism in relation with the Administrations concerned;​

- inventory and development of tourist sites;​

-inventory and development of amusement parks and leisure parks;​

- control of the quality of service in the hotel, catering and leisure industries; ​Among others.​

Stakeholders are groups and individuals that have a direct or indirect interest in the management of destination for tourism.​

The five main groups of stakeholders are: tourists, tourism sector organizations, community, environment and government.​

From the previous chart Cameroon seems to be in the right path and keeping the pace in a world in which destination governance has shifted rapidly from traditional public oriented model to a more corporate one. There is a clear indication of the willingness to make the public/private partnerships (PPPs) play a role in tourism management in Cameroon.

2. supplementary indicators: Employment in tourism by age, education, level and type of contracts

For the OECD, commitment to long term investment through economic cycles, retention and development of employees must be driven by evidence of contribution to competitiveness through effective employment in the sector. The importance to the sector and its overall contribution to national economic and social development should be materialize in observable and not negligible figures like : 

Number of jobs in tourism industries defined by age [youth (15-24); prime-age (25-54), older workers (55-64)], by education levels (low skilled, medium skilled, and high skilled), and by type of contract (permanent workers, temporary workers). ​

Whereas instead, here are the only figures I was able to find on tourism employment in Cameroon:

140,000 jobs has been created in the tourism sector between 2015 and 2016 (Jumia Travel Report 2017)​

Tourism represents 2.7% of employment in Cameroon.

3. Future development indicators: government budget appropriation for tourism

Funding is a sign of commitment to the tourism sector and to working in partnership by investing for improvements in performance ability and competitiveness. Funding is often linked to a national strategy to be delivered with industry partners as part of a policy that aims to do things such as improve the quality of products and services within the tourism industry, facilitate tourism investment opportunities, and to support the establishment of additional sustainable air services, promote the country as a tourist destination in key markets and conduct research that will inform future government interventions. So, OECD recommend policy makers to justify the levels of appropriation by gathering evidence of contribution and impact. In fact, this indicator facilitate the government assessment of appropriations for tourism and help to target priority growth sectors in the country or in a target destination.

Conclusion

At the end of my presentation, I can say that Cameroon tourism potential rightly described as "Africa in miniature" is been slowly transformed into reality. But the concern here is, after all, to observe if the policy implemented meet the competitiveness standards of some the OECD indicators considered in this work.​

We can thus observe that, despite of its national tourism action plan in which we have appreciated an inclination to make the public/private partnerships (PPPs) play a role in the tourism management of the country, and the choice to create a separate ministry of tourism which is an indicator that tourism is considered as a highly important sector of the economy for the country. Nevertheless, the inexistence, or at least the glaring lack of proofs of rates of employments in the sector gives the impression that tourism in Cameroon does not meet neither good level quality services nor job satisfaction in the industry, which are key points which directly influence attractiveness, productivity and competitiveness.​

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References

* Alastair M. Morrison 2013. Marketing and management tourism destinations​

* https://www.oecd.org/ indicators for measuring competitiveness​

* https://www.spm.gov.cm/ Bello Bouba Maigari Ministre du tourisme et des loisirs​

* Histoire du ministère du Tourisme et des loisirs - Osidimbea La Mémoire du Cameroun. Encyclopédie, annuaire. Histoire des organisations​

* https://www.lebledparle.com/fr/economie​

* dépenses de l’Etat par fonction 2019 ministère du tourisme et des loisirs - LA DIRECTION GENERALE DU BUDGET (dgb.cm)​

* Google pictures, personal picture and Edrawmax chart made by myself​