March 2, 2024

Africa shows strong tourism growth in 2023

Africa stands out as the continent with the fastest tourism growth in 2023, with international tourist arrival numbers at 96% of 2019 levels according to UN Tourism, the highest recovery percentage in the world. This translated into total international tourist movements reaching 66.4 million.

Some African counties even exceeded their 2019 numbers by October or November 2023 including Ethiopia (+30%), Tanzania (+20%) and Morocco (+11%). North Africa as a whole recorded 26.8 million international arrivals, up by 4.6% over 2019. The recovery of the continent was stimulated by better air connectivity, in particular on intra-regional routes and to Europe and the Middle East.

  • 66.4 million international tourism arrivals to Africa in 2023
  • +30% – Ethiopia showed the strongest growth, surpassing 2019 figures by 30% in 2023

Photo: Kenya’s ITB 2023 stand © Stéphane Lelarge