Standing up for development, growth, natural & cultural heritage in Niger tourism

Recog­nising the enorm­ous poten­tial and chal­lenges of Niger tour­ism, Issoufou Adamou Has­sane leads a NGO that he says is “lay­ing the found­a­tion” for tour­is­m’s reviv­al in the west Afric­an nation. 

But they need resources and partners.

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age (WTACH) invited Mr Adamou Has­sane to con­trib­ute this “GT” Insight. 

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Thanks to its geo­graph­ic­al loc­a­tion at a cross­roads of the great sub-Saha­ran civil­isa­tions, Niger has enorm­ous tour­ism poten­tial; nat­ur­al, cul­tur­al, and historical.

These attrac­tions are spread over the entire ter­rit­ory and form a mosa­ic of wealth that can pos­i­tion the coun­try among the lead­ing tour­ism destinations.

Gov­ern­ment policies have long focused on inter­na­tion­al tour­ism by tar­get­ing pro­mo­tions at West­ern customers.

Today, this strategy is prov­ing inef­fect­ive due to the cur­rent secur­ity situ­ation in the Sahel region. (The gov­ern­ments of some would-be source mar­kets strongly advise against trav­el­ling to the region.)

Niger’s new strategy aims to devel­op intern­al tourism

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Standing up for Niger tourism

Regard­less of its source mar­kets, the devel­op­ment of tour­ism — and its many dir­ect or indir­ect eco­nom­ic spin-offs (crafts, fees, con­ces­sions, trade, tax­a­tion, etc.) — would greatly con­trib­ute to the cre­ation of jobs and live­li­hoods in Niger. 

It would make it pos­sible to fight against the increase in delin­quency and viol­ence in some areas of Niger, while improv­ing liv­ing con­di­tions through­out the country.

In addi­tion, the devel­op­ment of tour­ism in Niger would make it pos­sible to halt and reverse the out­ward migra­tion of Niger­i­ens to Libya and Europe. Such travel is dan­ger­ous. Migrants have to cross a desert and pass through areas beset by conflict. 

How­ever, tour­ism devel­op­ment requires the full involve­ment of com­munit­ies as well as the devel­op­ment of train­ing pro­grams to improve loc­als’ capa­cit­ies, skills, and pro­ductiv­ity to enable them to find new sources of income in tour­ism and related trades. 

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“Tour­ism infra­struc­ture & devel­op­ment”

Aware of the real­it­ies, the NGO I lead, Tour­ism and Loc­al Devel­op­ment (TOLD-Niger), is imple­ment­ing ini­ti­at­ives aimed at strength­en­ing the sta­bil­ity and resi­li­ence of pop­u­la­tions and lay­ing the found­a­tion for the reviv­al of tour­ism in the near future. 

Our slo­gan “Actions, jobs and wealth cre­ation” refers to actions that will cre­ate jobs and wealth for Niger­i­en com­munit­ies; ini­ti­at­ives that will con­sol­id­ate eco­nom­ic and social sta­bil­ity in Niger.

Unfor­tu­nately, in 2020 our ambi­tious pro­gram came up against the Coronavir­us pan­dem­ic, which pro­foundly upset the world and hit the tour­ism sec­tor hard.

Standing up for heritage in Niger

For us, ‘good tour­ism’ is a form of tour­ism that places the well-being of loc­al com­munit­ies at the centre of tour­ist activ­ity, pro­motes cul­tur­al under­stand­ing between vis­it­ors and hosts, and pre­serves the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of destinations.

The pre­ser­va­tion and enhance­ment of nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age are pri­or­ity points for TOLD-Niger. This is why we have developed a strategy called “Stand up for Her­it­age”, the aim of which is to con­trib­ute to the safe­guard­ing and enhance­ment of the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of Niger. 

It is in this con­text that we con­trib­uted to the fol­low­ing activities:

Environmental heritage awareness

On the 60th anniversary of the Inde­pend­ence of Niger, August 3, 2020, TOLD-Niger in col­lab­or­a­tion with the Pre­fec­ture of Oual­lam car­ried out an aware­ness-rais­ing activ­ity on the import­ance of pre­serving the envir­on­ment in the vil­lage of Tolko­boye Fan­do­bon. We also planted 100 mango trees.

Cultural heritage events promotion

TOLD-Niger helped organ­ise Guéro­wol, Octo­ber 30 to Novem­ber 1, 2021, in the vil­lage of Foudouk Natou in the Agadez region.

A tra­di­tion­al fest­iv­al of nomad­ic Wood­abé her­ders, Guéro­wol takes place every year after the rainy sea­son. It is a cel­eb­ra­tion of male beauty punc­tu­ated by a set of dances and cho­reo­graph­ies. The men wear make-up and dress eleg­antly. The young girls elect the most hand­some of the dancers.

As the host vil­lage for the fest­iv­al, Foudouk benefited from sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port, includ­ing new bore­holes; new and repaired tables and benches for the school; a new ambu­lance for the health centre; and, com­ing soon, a train­ing centre for tra­di­tion­al sewing.

School-based Heritage Clubs

As part of our ‘Stand up for Her­it­age’ strategy, we plan to cre­ate Her­it­age Clubs in schools in order to teach young people the value ​​of pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing their her­it­age, and to devel­op their cre­at­ive tal­ents through train­ing workshops.

Community-based tourism development

We also intend to encour­age and sup­port loc­al com­munit­ies in the devel­op­ment of respons­ible com­munity-based tour­ism in Niger.

Niger tourism needs resources and partners

A major chal­lenge we face is in ral­ly­ing the required resources to suc­cess­fully raise aware­ness for and pro­mote respons­ible com­munity-based tour­ism in Niger. 

Anoth­er chal­lenge is our lack of part­ners to sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of activities.

It is for us to find part­ners to sup­port the pro­jects of our organ­isa­tion because we are fully aware that the activ­it­ies we are cur­rently car­ry­ing out will undoubtedly help to revive the tour­ism sec­tor in Niger in the near future.

After­word: We would like to extend our sin­cere thanks to SUNx Malta who has just awar­ded me a schol­ar­ship for a two-year online train­ing for the Cli­mate Friendly Travel Dip­loma. Our thanks also to Nigel Fell and Chris Flynn of the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age for their sup­port of our organ­isa­tion, as well as to Dav­id Gill­banks, pub­lish­er of The “Good Tour­ism” Blog, for this oppor­tununity to share.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Roumi dan­cers cel­eb­rat­ing male beauty at the Guero­wol Fest­iv­al in Niger. Pic­ture cour­tesy of TOLD.

About the author

Issoufou Adamou Has­sane is co-founder and Pres­id­ent of Tour­ism and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Niger (TOLD-Niger). TOLD’s mis­sion is to alle­vi­ate poverty through the cre­ation of jobs and income-gen­er­at­ing activ­it­ies. TOLD-Niger inter­venes in five main areas: tour­ism, cul­ture, envir­on­ment, food sov­er­eignty, and pro­fes­sion­al training.

In addi­tion to his role as Pres­id­ent of TOLD-Niger, Mr Adamou Has­sane works as a tech­nic­al assist­ant volun­teer at the Niger Tour­ism Pro­mo­tion Agency (APTN) where, among oth­er achieve­ments, he eval­u­ated the tour­ist mar­ket in Niger on behalf of the Niger Her­it­age project.

“GT” Insight Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age (WTACH) invited Issoufou to con­trib­ute this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.