by Josh Lew
Last updated: 10:25 AM ET, Mon May 8, 2017
Aside from beach destinations like the Gambia and Mauritius, tourists often come for safari or adventure travel experiences. But they are coming: The number of international arrivals on the continent has doubled since 2000.
Now, some East African countries are starting to promote their region's most notable crop to tourists.
Coffee plantations thrive at higher elevations in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. These countries are trying to diversify beyond nature tourism (i.e. safaris in the Great Rift Valley nations and mountain gorilla excursions in Rwanda), and coffee could play an increasingly important role in their efforts.
The Wine Blueprint
Despite the fact that Africa is a major producer of specialty crops (70 percent of the world's cocoa comes from four West Africa nations, for example), food tourism is in its infancy on the continent.
South Africa has provided a blueprint for cuisine tourism on the continent. Its wine travel industry is thriving alongside safari and cultural tourism. Wine tourism is already the number one draw in the Western Cape, with 93 percent of American visitors traveling to this province specifically for tastings and vineyard visits.
Just like South African wine appears in most American liquor stores and wine shops, coffee beans from producers in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia are common to specialty coffee shops.
Even though would-be tourists might not be familiar with these countries beyond their wildlife, they are familiar with these products.
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Becoming Stand-alone
A paper published by the World Bank and Netherlands Development Agency explained the real goal of adding coffee to the tourism menu in Rwanda: "New experiences would extend the length of stay of tourists and eventually establish Rwanda as a stand-alone destination" [like South Africa].
Infrastructure is decent in Rwanda, and some of the coffee plantations that offer tours are within day-trip distance of Kigali, the capital. Rwanda's small, independent coffee producers are known for quality, artisan beans-the country hosted the Cup of Excellent, a kind of Oscars for specialty coffee, in 2008.
At the same time, however, the abundance of smaller, mom-and-pop plantations in Rwanda make it difficult to organize tours to more than a couple of locations at a time.
Kenya and Tanzania are known as wildlife destinations, but they are also using coffee as part of their push towards "stand-alone" status. Tanzania has both high-end and basic coffee plantation and tasting experiences.
The Arusha Coffee Lodge, part of the luxurious Elewana Collection, offers guests a chance to stay on a plantation, tour the fields and enjoy a coffee "cupping" session to taste the crops right after they have been picked and roasted.
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Less pricey experiences (i.e. a la carte tours you might see advertised on Lonely Planet) are available, even in and around the same Arusha area in Northwest Tanzania. Tour companies in Kenya, meanwhile, sell tea and coffee tours alongside wildlife viewing trips.
Because their names are recognizable to coffee drinkers who opt for something fancier than Folgers and celebrated by aficionados, and because coffee plantations are plentiful (Kenya has an estimated 150,000 coffee farmers in addition to some of Africa's best tea plantations), coffee is certainly a logical focus for tourism.
In East Africa, countries both developing and already-developed see coffee tourism as a great way to diversify beyond the safari industry.
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