Africa adopts firm measures to confront growing overtourism

28-12-25

The African continent in 2025 is facing a phenomenon that has reached a critical dimension: the accelerated growth of tourism has generated unprecedented pressure on ecosystems, local communities, and infrastructure, forcing countries such as Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Seychelles, and South Africa to adopt strict measures and high-value strategies to manage visitor flows sustainably. This collective response seeks to balance Africa’s natural and cultural appeal with the need to preserve its most fragile resources, ensuring that tourism remains a positive force for both national economies and resident populations.

The phenomenon of overtourism — the saturation of destinations due to an excess of visitors that exceeds a place’s carrying capacity — has become evident in several of Africa’s most emblematic destinations and has required active policies to mitigate it. In regions such as the Serengeti and the Masai Mara Reserve, the uncontrolled increase in safaris and vehicles has altered wildlife behaviour, disrupted migrations and degraded natural areas that are considered world heritage. The growth in visitor numbers at critical points, especially during the wildebeest migration and other key events, has shown that without proper regulation, the tourist experience can become unsustainable for wildlife, local communities and even the visitors themselves.

Faced with this reality, various countries have chosen to implement high-value tourism policies, raising entrance fees to national parks and heritage sites to reduce mass flows, generate significant income for conservation and finance community projects. In Rwanda, for example, gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park is subject to a daily permit limit, with fees designed to ensure a manageable number of visitors and to channel resources into habitat protection initiatives and support for local populations.

Tanzania, home to the legendary Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, has intensified similar strategies. Access fees to these iconic areas help control overcrowding in the main circuits and redirect part of the demand to alternative destinations within the country, such as Ruaha or Nyerere National Parks, which offer comparable nature experiences but with lower tourist pressure. This not only diversifies the visitor experience but also spreads the economic benefits of tourism more evenly across the territory.

In Kenya, where the Masai Mara is globally synonymous with safari and biodiversity, the introduction of strict limits on the number of vehicles at migration crossing points aims to minimise interference in wildlife corridors and protect the park’s ecological integrity. At the same time, initiatives have been strengthened to ensure that local Maasai communities participate actively in management and benefit directly from the tourism industry, reinforcing a more inclusive and sustainable development model.

South Africa is also facing its own challenges, particularly in urban and coastal centres such as Cape Town, where the rise in tourism has accelerated gentrification processes that push up housing prices and alter the social fabric. To counter these effects, authorities have developed policies that integrate affordable housing projects and programmes that encourage responsible investment by tourism companies in community initiatives, as well as adjusting national park fees to ensure that part of this revenue is allocated to environmental maintenance and infrastructure improvements.

In the heart of the Okavango Delta in Botswana and in the islands of Seychelles, unique natural destinations with extremely delicate ecosystems, access mechanisms and visitor fees have been established to control pressure on these vulnerable environments. Resources collected are reinvested in conservation efforts and in activities that foster a fairer distribution of tourism income among local populations, who play a key role in protecting these territories.

Egypt, with its vast archaeological and monumental heritage, also joined this trend in 2025, introducing controlled entry fees in high-demand historic sites such as the Giza Pyramids and the temples of Luxor. These measures seek not only to manage visitor volumes but also to ensure that the revenues generated contribute to conservation and archaeological research, thereby protecting these cultural treasures for future generations.

The convergence of policies in different African countries shows a shared recognition that tourism, while a key driver of economic development, must be managed according to criteria of environmental sustainability, cultural respect and social benefit. The adoption of high-value tourism strategies, the regulation of visitor flows and the promotion of responsible practices offer a model for addressing the challenges of the 21st century, in which tourism growth can no longer be conceived without the protection of the natural and cultural assets that make it possible.

In collaboration with:

This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies.

Legal notice