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Travelers to African countries are usually there for volunteering(Peaces Corps, etc.) vs. tourism?
When ever I hear traveling to Africa brought it's usually for volunteer or something like a missionary or if someone saysthey'll be going to Africa, then someone asks "if they going to volunteer or on a missionary?".
I have been to Botswana & South Africa as a tourist. Although I did travel there because someone I know had a temporary (paying!) job in Botswana for 6-7 months approx. So I had someone there to show me around at that time.
Many westerners visit Kenya to tour the wild game preserves. "Treetops" is the name of one famous resort there.
Some people visit Cape Town for its beautiful scenery and to see Nelson Mandela's former prison. South Africa has several national parks. South Africa (the country's name) has more infrastructure, and more white people than other African countries do.
Quite a few African-Americans visit Goree Island historic site in Senegal, where many of the slave ships departed.
Egypt and Morocco are both technically in Africa ("North Africa"). Egypt has long been a major tourist destination for westerners because of the Pyramids, Luxor, and other ancient monuments. (Of course, right now the situation is unstable). Morocco is so close to Spain that many tourists visiting Spain, add on a a quick hop over to Morroco as well.
Morocco is a popular tourist destination for Europeans (and Americans doing their "eurotrips") because it is so close and has a wide variety of sights and things to do: the Saharan desert, the Atlas mountains, (some) Roman ruins, the medinas at Marrakesh and Fez, the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, etc.. I even saw motorhomes with Dutch plates on them when I was there. Budget airlines fly there all the time. In fact, I was able to get a one-way ticket from Marrakesh to Barcelona (took the ferry into Morocco) for under $100 at the time when the Euro was at its peak.
Tunisian beaches are popular destinations for French and Italians, I believe.
Senegal is an up-and-coming beach and sex tourism destination for Europeans.
Ghana seems to enjoy some limited popularity among black American travelers interested in the slave trade, but that can't amount to much.
Egypt has a bustling tourist industry and has had for a long time, for obvious reasons.
Kenya and Tanzania are popular destinations for "adventure" travel by Westerners - for example safaris and Mt. Kilimanjaro expeditions. Likewise for South Africa and Namibia.
The region of Africa that seems to be most overlooked by Africa is West Africa (except for parts of Senegal and perhaps Ghana) and Central Africa. Many countries are situated there - Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many others. The region has suffered major instability since decolonization in the 1950's and 1960's, which besides making it unattractive to tourists has also impeded progress in building any sort of infrastructure (except mobile phone networks). As a result, this region has very few tourist facilities.
According to Wikipedia a total of almost 58 million tourists visited Africa in 2009 (including Egypt).
I have no idea how many volunteers went there in that period, but I doubt that it's more than 1 million.
I live in Europe and it seems like tourism would win hands down. Many African countries are popular destinations, and I would have think that the number of volunteers doesn't come near.
Majority of tourist to Africa are mostly from Europe correct?
The number tourist to Africa from the Americas is very small?
How about tourist from Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand?
I don't know the exact stats but given that Europe is quite close to Africa, I wouldn't be surprised if most tourists were Europeans. When we were there, on a tour of 14, more than half were Europeans and the rest were made up of 3 Canadians and us two Aussies. And we were only there because we won the trip. So glad we did! It was an amazing experience.
When we came across other tourists and tour groups, most of them were European but there was a sizeable number of Asian tourists as well. The Europeans on our tour - some of them had already been to Africa several times and planned to visit again in future. Africa is so fascinating and astonishing in so many ways, it's easy to understand why people are drawn to visit more than once or twice if they live close.
Some countries in Africa have quite a developed tourist market and volunteers would in total make a very small percentage indeed.
Far more would go on business or even work. A number of countries have mines located within them which in turn employ foreigners in one way or another.
Many Chinese are in Africa for this reason as well as Australians and many others.
Tourism is big business in many parts. From the game parks found in Kenya,the island of Zanzibar to the beautiful city of Cape Town and the delights of the Garden Route in South Africa and the deserts and German culture of Namibia.
Then there are the beach hotels found in The Gambia,that serve Europeans seeking sun and mature European women in search of more eathly delights.
There is the traveller/backpacker trucks running down through Africa full of younger folk on long adventure seeking trips.
There are the workers found throughout that work for NGOs. So volunteers would rate very low.
Most folk would be from Europe/UK but also a number of Aussies,especially travellers doing the Kenya South Africa route,as well as a fair number of returning for holiday South Africans now living in Australia.
Just like Africa,a very diverse range of people there for a diverse range of reasons.
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