Global E-Commerce: Africa - Bright Lights Of African E-commerce

BRIGHT LIGHTS OF AFRICAN E-COMMERCE

By the turn of the 21st century African e-commerce already had registered some clear successes. According to African Business, one business sector in which e-commerce gained a foothold in Africa was tourism. With the ability to set up a Web site and distribute tour information for minimal cost anywhere in the world, African tourism companies were able to promote themselves on a par with tourist packages globally. Tourism firms, now able to accept reservations directly via e-mail, are decreasingly dependent on foreign travel agencies, thereby significantly lowering the cost of business by eliminating the agents' fees.

Some of the economic news bode well for Africa as it entered the Internet age. Through the mid-and late 1990s, even while much of Asia and Latin America found themselves in severe economic crisis, Africa enjoyed steady economic growth. Moreover, while Africa's share of global trade didn't change significantly in the mid-and late 1990s, the volume of African exports was generally keeping pace with the expansion in international trade. Building as it was on two decades of economic decline, however, these successes were particularly fragile. For instance, according to a 1999 article in Law and Policy in International Business, the growth levels achieved in the 1990s, while certainly a positive trend, weren't great enough to overcome the massive poverty levels that plague the continent.

Despite persistent problems, African countries made tremendous gains in the late 1990s and early 2000s in establishing their presence on the Internet. As late as 1997, e-mail itself was extremely rare on the continent, particularly outside South Africa, while general Internet access was almost unheard of. By the turn of the 21st century, however, Internet cafes had sprouted in most towns that had a vital business or cultural community.