ECOWAS Commission Develops New Regulations for Tourist Accommodation in West Africa
The Private Sector Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission is organizing a technical meeting to amend and validate new regulatory texts for tourist accommodation establishments across the ECOWAS region. The meeting is in line with the implementation of the Revised Treaty, and the new regulations aim to address issues such as unfair competition, new forms of tourist accommodation, and the need for enhanced security measures.
Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Commission’s Private Sector Directorate is set to hold a technical meeting for tourism experts from April 3-5, 2023. The meeting aims to amend and validate new regulatory texts for tourist accommodation establishments across the ECOWAS region. This move is in line with the implementation of the Revised Treaty, which involved developing a Regional Tourism Policy and an ECOTOUR 19-29 Action Plan in collaboration with member states.
The region’s analysis highlighted the need to improve the regulatory system and enhance the low level of tourism services. This has been a significant hindrance to the development of the sector despite its potential to drive economies. ECOTOUR 19-29 Program No. 5 was developed to address this challenge by establishing a regulatory framework, hotel classification criteria, and control systems.
The drafting process, which began in 2019, has been divided into five phases. Phases 1 and 2 concluded with the provision of a preliminary draft of texts, which was amended and validated by the member states’ experts. Phases 3 and 4 focused on developing a scoring table for each category of tourist accommodation establishments, a harmonized grid of control and allocation of grades by categories. The last phase will take place in Lomé, where the regulations for tourist accommodation establishments will be adopted.
The new regulations aim to address issues such as unfair competition from hotels, new forms of tourist accommodation like ecolodges and guest houses, the need for enhanced security measures, and harmonized procedures for hotel classification. By adopting the new regulations, ECOWAS aims to have a harmonized, standardized, qualitative, and competitive accommodation offer, including hotels, ecolodges, motels, apart-hotels, and hostels. The regulations aim to affirm national cultural and architectural identities, consider the environment and the climate, and create labels and certificates specific to the West African region.
