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African Marketing Confederation launches a dedicated Tourism Chapter
By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2025
New Chapter aims to be about more than just tourism promotion – it will drive a rebrand of Africa’s image on the world stage.
The African Marketing Confederation has launched a Tourism Chapter dedicated to helping the continent’s tourism marketers maximise Africa’s potential as a destination for business and leisure travellers.
It will provide a forum for tourism industry professionals to hone their marketing skills and learn from local, regional and international best practice.
The chapter was launched at the recent 2025 AMC Conference in Ghana, to complement the work that the AMC is already doing with Brand Africa, a UN Tourism initiative to promote tourism on the continent.
Within the context of AfCFTA
Speaking on stage just ahead of the Tourism Chapter announcement, Professor Robert Ebo Hinson, prominent Ghanaian marketing academic and marketing thought leader, emphasised the importance of African tourism branding within the broader context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The AMC Tourism Chapter will help to promote Africa as more than just a safari destination. Photo: Kaybee Photography, Pexels
“If we make so much noise about the African Continental Free Trade Area, but we don’t get our country brand propositions right, we don’t get our continental branding right, then it’s impossible that we reap the fullest extent of what we want to achieve with this expanded trade market,” Hinson said.
African tourism needs upskilling and training
Helen McIntee, AMC co-founder and President, told delegates that the journey towards the creation of the AMC Tourism Chapter had begun when she was invited by the Zambia Institute of Marketing and Zambia Tourism Agency to attend a Brand Africa session organised by UN Tourism.
“We put our heads together and thought about how tourism needs help in terms of upskilling, training and supporting (AfCFTA),” she said. “If we don’t push tourism from a marketing point of view, and try to gather expertise and impart marketing skills, then Brand Africa is not going to work.
“This led us to thinking: Who better to market Africa than the AMC? Since then, we have had various partnerships and global collaborations come to fruition. It just became natural for the AMC to assist in establishing a better tourism brand and upskilling the people involved.
“At all of our AMC conferences to date, there has been this undercurrent of feeling that we need to reposition our continent. So often, people refer to Africa as the ‘Dark Continent’ – a place of doom and gloom, wars, poverty and famine.
“We need to change that narrative to the rest of the world. We need to start telling people the good stories about Africa, and about the beauty of it. The AMC Tourism Chapter can help to do that.”
About the AMC Tourism Chapter
The AMC Tourism Chapter will be a united platform for marketing professionals, tourism boards and industry leaders committed to transforming how Africa is seen, experienced and celebrated.
It aims to be more than merely tourism promotion, it will be a rebrand of Africa’s image on the world stage with a clear purpose: to strengthen marketing excellence within Africa’s tourism sector, promote intra-African tourism and unlock the continent’s regional treasures, and collaborate globally by drawing on knowledge from the AMC’s partners at UN Tourism, the Asia Marketing Federation and the European Marketing Confederation.
It will champion sustainable and responsible tourism that benefits Africa’s people, protects the continent’s heritage and fuels its economies.
Through training, research, networking and recognition of excellence, the Tourism Chapter will give African destinations the tools to compete and win in the global tourism market, ensuring Africa is known for far more than safaris, but becomes a continent also celebrated for its cuisine and festivals, architecture, wellness and cultural attractions.
It will connect professionals to an online platform and honour outstanding campaigns through an annual Tourism Marketing Award. It is a movement to show the world – and Africans themselves – the limitless creativity, beauty and potential of African countries.
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