14. Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 and Tourism Recovery Strategies in West Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in all sectors of the economy globally. Tourism remains the most negatively impacted industry. Mitigation measures and plans were implemented to curb the damage by nations. The chapter explores the impact of COVID-19, mitigation, response, and recovery strategies different governments in West Africa through their Ministry of Tourism implemented in response to the gruesome impact of the pandemic. Qualitative research analysis was utilized on secondary data analysis such as plans by different governments and peer-reviewed articles from Google Scholar, Tourism Integrated Annual Reports, and National Statistics offices. The study found that there was limited and slow government support for the recovery of the tourism industry in the West African countries, limited funding, limited digitization, limited social media and limited domestic tourism, and lack of all stakeholder solutions to the industry, unclear messages being disseminated to tourists, and businesses creating uncertainty in the industry. The study implications are that all West African countries heavily depend on tourism, which exerts pressure on the government to have other alternative measures to boost foreign currency besides tourism. Further implications are the heavy reliance on international tourists by West African countries without utilizing local tourism, and the dependency syndrome of Africa on Europe for solutions that guided them in resolving the COVID-19 disaster. Other implications are the lack of technology to detect coronavirus at international airports and the lack of support on research, technology, and development in getting quick solutions to crises and pandemics, painting Africa as a follower and not a leader in tourism decision-making platforms. The study recommends close cooperation between nations to avoid the spread of pandemics in the future, taking lessons learned seriously from the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid worst-case scenarios next time, promotion of domestic tourism, aggressive tourism, practice customized tourism, widening the source markets for tourists, invest and improve in tourism research, technology and ensure sustainable tourism.