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Africa in miniature: thus was named Cameroon, for ages, by all visitors who have discovered there a rare concentration of landforms and climates across the African continent.

Named "Africa in miniature", as it brings together on the same territory the various tourist attractions of the continent, Cameroon still has untapped assets: mountains, savannas, lakes, tropical forests, rich fauna and flora, and ancient cultural traditions. There are over 300 tourist sites in Cameroon and nearly 250 ethnic groups, some of which still practice a colourful folklore, such as fantasias (horse racing) of Lamido (Muslim leader) in the North or enthronement of Western leaders. The coastline, with its 400 km of sandy beaches overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, is conducive to health tourism.

In the area of the safari, there are seven national parks. The most interesting and best developed is the Waza National Park, located in the northern region of the country. These parks have a large number of representative animals of the typical African wildlife (elephants, lions, giraffes, black rhinos, leopards, buffaloes, antelopes, hippos, hyenas, gorillas, hartebeest, cheetahs, etc ...). As for ecotourism, it can be practiced in various places such as Korup National Park, which has endemic plant species old for several million years, primary forest in Dja, classified as World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, the Mount Cameroon volcano, with a height of 4070 m, where survives flora dating from the Quaternary, and the sites of the Mayo Rey containing fingerprints and fossils of dinosaurs.

Competitive accommodation

Because of this great wealth of interest in tourism, Cameroon needs a competitive accommodation system, capable of supporting the massive inflow of visitors (about 500,000 per year). In Cameroon, the combination accommodation & catering is an independent economic sector. Thus, the activities of accommodation and catering generated in Cameroon in 2007, produced an amount of more than 700 billion FCFA or nearly 11% of that recorded for all services.

According to estimates by the Ministry of Economy, the contribution of hosting activities to the value added in services amounted to a total value of 200 billion FCFA. Other evidence of the importance of hosting activities: they accounted for nearly 60,000 jobs in Cameroon, about 20% of the jobs in the services sector. Moreover, these figures relate only to accommodation establishments inventoried by the Office of the Ministry of Tourism, namely some 360 hotel properties ranked from 1 to 5 stars scattered throughout the territory of Cameroon. For, according to authorities, there are over 1,350 tourist accommodation establishments undeclared to administration. These establishments, known as inns, receive mainly domestic travellers.

Francois Bambou