Evaluating Africa’s comparative advantage in travel service exports
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP06/2009Publication date: 2009
Author(s):
This paper tests the hypothesis that African countries reveal a comparative advantage in travel service exports empirically. The UNCTAD 2007 Handbook of Statistics (2008) is used to calculate revealed comparative advantage for 186 countries over 10 tradable service sectors using three different measures of the Balassa index. The results indicate that many African countries reveal a strong comparative advantage in travel service exports. Particularly, a band of countries with a vertical axis from South Africa to Ethiopia and a band of countries with a horizontal axis in the Sahel reveal promising results. If African countries are to benefit from the growth in world service exports, researchers and policy makers should note the massive potential for African travel exports, especially in the smaller destinations. Policies – including regional initiatives – to promote sustained growth in travel service exports are therefore of critical importance.
JEL Classification:L83, F14, N77
Keywords:Tourism, international trade, revealed comparative advantage, sub-Saharan Africa
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Monday 28 July 202512:00-13:00
Dr Neil Rankin: Ceo Of Predictive Insights & Stellenbosch University
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Prof Willem Boshoff: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Two competing approaches in South African competition policy: merger control and anti-cartel enforcement over the past 30 years"
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Professor Johan Fourie: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Economic History: TBC"
BER Weekly
25 Jul 2025 Budget hurdle cleared, but US tariff implementation remains a riskIt was another big week on the local political front, but with some constructive momentum. On the trade front, ahead of next week’s 1 August deadline, Trump announced another “massive” trade deal with Japan. The upcoming week is busy, with a slew of global and domestic data releases and several monetary policy decisions, including the SARB....
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