COVID-19 and Africa's aviation and tourism sectors: A new agenda for the future?

Abstract

Although the impact of COVID-19 is inordinately enormous, there remains a lack of attention to the new governance architecture, the African Union High-Level Task Force (AU-HLTF), in Africa's aviation and tourism sectors in its wake, which this paper primarily examines. We foregrounded governance themes of political economy within the African Union High-Level Task Force (AU-HLTF) through secondary data, observing 90 key industry leaders and 10 purposively sampled semi-structured interviews. We found the insignificant priority in tourism restart via LCCs first, the incongruent holistic relationship between the restart of the aviation and tourism sectors. Secondly, the historical-geographical material relationships within the new governance framework. Thirdly, the AU-HLTF intervention is actor-biased towards the aviation sector and rooted in path dependency. A hierarchical-mixed market governing typology we propose by arguing is a steering mechanism of public sector reform that alternatively reboots a balanced path towards sustainability by prioritizing intra-tourism promoted by low-cost carriers.

1. Introduction

The World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30th, 2020, and a pandemic on March 11th (BBC, 2020). Globally, the impacts of COVID-19 are widely reported, for instance, by the UNWTO. It estimates, about 100 million travel and tourism jobs are at risk with 5–7 years' worth of industry growth lost. Undoubtedly, Africa's looming danger is the job losses for the 24.3 Million Africans involved in the travel and tourism value chain (UNWTO-Africa, 2020a, UNWTO-Africa, 2020b). The job losses resulting from the closure of borders and the travel restrictions imposed by the source market and the continent itself. Majorly aided by airlines, COVID-19 has decreased by 44% of international arrivals in Africa. According to the 2019 Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK), Africa's had a 58% RPK compared with the 38% of global reduction (IATA, 2020) in RPK due to the pandemic.

For this paper, the AU High-Level Task Force (AU-HLTF) is the new governing mechanism and the critical strategic stakeholder group. The AU-HLTF is central to the investigation. Under the African Civil Aviation Authority (AFAC) auspices, it is partnering with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the WHO. It is “to serve as a platform for a cooperative and collaborative network by all stakeholders that seek the required assistance from international, regional and national organizations and institutional frameworks/mechanisms. It serves the purposes of adequate resource allocation to support the recovery plan of the aviation industry (AI) in Africa” (AU-HLTF, 2020, p.9). This platform prevents the spread of COVID-19 and positions the aviation sector on the path of restart, recovery, and sustainability. Accordingly, the source document of the AU-HLTF new governing architecture on COVID-19 restart and recovery of the AI is the reference point of analysis of this paper which investigates the prioritization of intra-tourism restart or otherwise via LCCs.

According to UNCTAD (2017), there is an increasing potential for intra-tourism in Africa as 4 in 10 international arrivals to Africa originate within, and purposively, business tourism lags behind travel for holidays, leisure, and recreation, and other personal reasons (visiting of friends and relatives). This paper argues Intra-tourism in Africa is travel for leisure, majorly and personal reasons within Africa.

Following Wu et al. (2017, p.18), Africa is a “high-risk category region for the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. It is a […] wild disease reservoir of agricultural practices that increase contact between wildlife and livestock, and cultural practices that increase contact between humans, wildlife, and livestock [intersect]; see also (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020,p.4). This claim, accordingly, is supported by the WHO through its WHO Regional Offices for Africa, the Americas, and Europe under the International Health Regulations 2016 Report on Acute Health Infections. The report states,

1508 acute public health events from 2001 to 2016. Eighty-Nine were recorded in 2016, 93% of Eighty-three (83) were detected through routine epidemic intelligence… six (7%) were notified by National Focal Points (NFPs) and national governments.

(WHO, 2017, p.3)

Most of these events were of infectious origin, including sizeable yellow fever outbreaks, the continuation of the Ebola and Zika virus disease outbreaks, including imported Zika congenital syndrome cases, sequelae of civil conflicts, etc., natural disasters, imported cases of Lassa fever and Coronavirus. Africa, therefore, has averaged twice the global acute infections and pandemics of the 21st Century (Wu et al., 2017). Whereas evidence (Jeuring & Haartsen, 2017; Navarro, Germán, & Bernier, 2020; Romagosa, 2020) suggests that the most probable effect of COVID-19 is arguably the increase of proximity tourism, doing tourism and traveling nearer/Intra, a tourist's geography/home LCCs would enable that.

Above these, it is a fact of the continent's endemic poverty. In that sense then, four factors; increasing intra-travel for leisure and holiday, the prevalence of acute public health diseases within the continent and the exacerbated effects of COVID-19 prompting closer destination choices, the continent's resilience to crisis (Pearce, 2012), and the temporary de-globalization of travel and tourism have informed the paper's position to reboot tourism to a sustainable balance prioritizing intra-tourism via LCCs. Aviation and travel will constitute the ‘new normal,’ post-COVID-19. The article seeks other alternatives for this new normal time. We argue the aviation sector must be linked to the tourism industry's internal transformation because “for millions of Africans, tourism is a lifeline – tourism's potential for driving transformative and inclusive growth must be harnessed” (UNCTAD, 2017:II). Besides, it is proposed that tourism would have contributed to a 100% in real GDP terms in Africa by 2063. Most significantly, based on the factors above, inbound air traffic to Africa would reduce to an all-time low, and most would revert as before to business traffic, not tourism and leisure.

Accordingly, COVID-19 has been episodic (Gössling et al., 2020; Hall, Scott, & Gössling, 2020). Evidence exists; for example, (Gössling et al., 2020) have all argued of the severity of pandemics on the tourism industry predominantly aided by airlines (Gössling et al., 2020), and it is not uncommon too (Fauci & Morens, 2012; Scott & Gössling, 2015). However, following COVD-19, key literature (Brouder, 2020; Gallego & Font, 2020; Gössling et al., 2020; Hall et al., 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020; Ioannides & Gyimóthy, 2020; Lapointe, 2020; Niewiadomski, 2020; Romagosa, 2020) have attempted to address the critical issue of avoiding Business As Usual (BAU) and rebooting towards the tenets of sustainable tourism.

A separate paper by Amankwah-Amoah (2020) found that COVID-19 is seeing the return to Business As Usual (BAU), where airlines and industries in the EU are abandoning carbon emission targets and efficiency standards just to survive the impacts of the pandemic. Research attention on COVID-19 as it has temporarily halted tourist passenger's aviation and Business in Africa has not received any attention just yet. Besides, there is a gap in literature sharing insights into COVID-19 and its impact on tourism and aviation. Secondly, in Africa, neither has the new governing architecture of the AU been investigated to establish its priorities relative to sustainable tourism. Thus, literature that foregrounds central themes on the reboot of the AI, which potentially links LCCs, is unavailable, particularly in Africa, which ties in social theory concepts of governance to the political economy of AU-HLT is non-existent.

Given the above, this paper seeks a significant contribution to overcoming the “othering” or “same old” of Africa's aviation industry, which examines its governance in the past, the present, and the alternative future of the Africa aviation space by linking its significance or otherwise to the tourism sector in Africa via LCCs.

For this paper, LCCs have the transformative potential of sustainable tourism in Africa post-COVID-19. An LLC is an airline that operates in a way that minimizes cost to passengers' benefits (Smyth & Pearce, 2006). The papers' argument is on the myriad cost advantages of LCCs in labor, aircraft, fuel; infrastructure; product, distribution and overhead cost, higher seating density (Bowen, 2019). For Campisi, Costa, and Mancuso (2010), load factor which, represents the percentage of seats filled with passengers or the ratio of unit costs to unit yields, is presented in empirical studies (IATA, 2020) to have increased LCCs fleet capacity in passenger numbers not only in emerging economies but also in the developed as well.

To do that, we examine the governing architecture of the AU-HLTF similarly to (Yee, 2004, p. 28) that “new governing activities that do not occur solely through governments” but through supranational policy structures and multi-level governance. For that reason, the paper foregrounds governance themes in a political economy within social theory because the structural conditions under which tourism is operational are the fundamentals of political economy (Britton, 1991). In this manner, the paper argues similarly with (Britton, 1982; Britton, 1991) that situating sustainable tourism restart and recovery under a historical capitalist structure exposes an ingrained capitalist system of accumulation that undermines tourism unbalancing its sustainable recovery and restart, hence further development. Therefore tourism restart and development is not a neutral act of any given political system but a political action (Peet & Thrift, 1989). Thus, the paper sheds light on the “systemic sources of power serving to reproduce and condition the different modes of tourism development” (Bianchi, 2002, p. 265). For this paper, the politics of tourism planning and its development is a complexity of state activities; hence, a political economy's application gains an insight into such state interventions. The spatial scaling of tourism governance within the political economy could help understand sustainable tourism (Zahra, 2011). Accordingly, the relative tractability of sustainably restarting tourism in Africa is a multi-lateral and meso-governance policy challenge. We create a framework towards a paradigm shift in proposing sustainable intra-tourism via LCCs. Understanding the reasoning situated in the multi-level steering process of the AU-HLTF is drawn heavily from political economy themes in tourism governance (Bramwell, 2011). Thus, the currency of political economy in social theory is a variety of economic and non-economic activities (Mosedale, 2011). Therefore, we draw within social theory the political variants of strategic relational approach, dynamic capabilities; agency structure and strategic selectivity; and temporal features of state intervention: exogenous and endogenous path dependencies.

1.1. The application of social theory

Social theory is popular in social science because of its' set ideas connecting to ‘broader explanation’ of worldly events (Panelli, 2004). For this paper, social theory is a silo of transferable theoretical concepts. Drawing similarly, social theory “functions as both a storage and a bridging ‘abstraction’ (Sartori, 1970), that stores the results of work on one topic or in one field of study in the form of broad ideas that transferable across the theoretical bridges to other study topics and other research fields” (Bramwell, 2011 p.463). The application of political economy in social theory, therefore though broad, is infrequently used. For example, Mosedale (2011) identifies Marxian, regulation theory, international comparative, and post-structural theories as critical aspects of social thought applied in tourism studies. Significant research in tourism governance (Blume, 1977a, Blume, 1977b; Bramwell, 2011; Bramwell & Lane, 2015; Brouder, 2015; Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b; Mellon & Bramwell, 2018; Stoker, 1998) have in one way, or the other made use a critical social theoretical perspective likewise in the AI in Africa (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018, Amankwah-Amoah, 2020; Raguraman, 1997; Rivers, 2016). Specifically, key transferable ideas enabled by social theory in both sectors apply in this paper. They include strategic relational approach and dynamic capabilities and institutional-based perspectives, agency-structure, strategic selectivity, and state intervention's temporal features: exogenous and endogenous path dependencies.

Given the above, the paper utilizes a comparative political economy with limited application in Africa's tourism studies but stands for distinct perspectives. First, “it is interested in the consequences of the differences in ideologies and structural organizations that has on society” (Mosedale, 2011, p. 27). Secondly, it is a refocused understanding of political-economic systems of governance and an analysis of various capitalist systems. Third, capital variations are explicable in historical context, thus how institutional actions are path-dependent (Mosedale, 2011). For this paper, the comparative political economy emphasizes the relative varieties of capitalism explained by the difference in historically key institutional differences within new AU-HLTF architecture. In that sense, there is a comparative interest in institutional layering manifested in the historical clash of control within the sustainable tourism restart. Therefore, the variations in agencies of the AU-HLTF could mean that political-economic systems are path-dependent not solely on contemporary events, for example, COVID-19, but on a historical capitalist relationship. Thus, we decontextualize place-specific relationships between economic, political, and social actors as manifestations of relational, economic, and spatial interactions (Bathelt & Glückler, 2003), where there is a historical change process. As a result, in this paper, distinctive governance themes are political-economic systems of tourism and the AI in Africa merged by social theory.

The AU-HLTF is a new governing architecture, where its functions do not occur solely through governments but supranational policy structures and multi-level governance. Governance is a much broader concept under the AU-HLTF that encompasses elected officials to the unelected. Therefore, governance is a collective action that leads to an end goal.

That implies the mechanisms to ‘steer’ home an objective is a system (Bulkeley, 2005; Stoker, 1998). Thus, every system needs steering through a channel because there is an “authoritative allocation of resources and the exercise of control and coordination” (Rhodes, 1996, p.653). The term governance in this paper first refers to a”steering” mechanism (Bevir, 2011; Healey, 2006). Secondly, governance is also “neo-liberal reform of the public sector” (Bevir, 2011; Shone & Memom, 2008), where the goal is by steering public sector reform programs, we obtain a “balance” (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b, p.15) of three interdependent dimensions of the: economy, society, and environment. In that sense, the sort of governance sought in this paper is a total theoretical conception (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b), which enables us to develop an ideal model that prioritizes sustainable intra-tourism via low-cost aviation. In this sense, we focus on a particular feature of new governance integrating at multi-levels. A steered coordination between different governments' levels occurring horizontally and vertically could lead to sustainability (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b). For this paper, new modes of tourism governance are neo-liberal steering ways of public sector tourism reforms. Key aspects of the SDGs increasingly are steering modes that are “predominantly framed in a particular growth and business way in a tourism context that emphasizes the importance of market-oriented approaches and managerialism” (Rutty, Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2015). Therefore, it makes sense that the AU homogeneously is the regional state government and a new form of government that is multi-lateral in its political and economic importance to “steer” through non-elected officials to restart and recover the travel and tourism industries. The recovery and restart of Africa's aerospace are thus contextualized within the political economy to explain the need for a paradigm shift where the value of air services defined by this paper as intra-tourism would constitute sustainability. We would return to (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b) “balance” later. Still, we turn on to governance themes of social theoretical concepts that allow for transferability of theoretical ideals in brief and clear descriptions to these concepts.

1.2. Strategic relational approach and dynamic capabilities

In a political economy, social systems constitute parts of society (Harvey, 2010). In this sense, “the political sphere associated with governance is strongly related to the economic and social spheres” (Bramwell, 2011, p.465). In political economy, “the state is a social relation,”… where its “apparatuses and practices are materially interdependent with other institutional orders and social practices. In this sense, the state is “socially embedded” (Jessop, 2008, p.1,5), in a holistic and relational view of a social system where its “parts and wholes are mutually constitutive of each other” (Harvey, 1996, p. 53).

The institutional-based view refers “to the rule of the game in a society or more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction” (North, 1990, p.3). It is, therefore, the truism that environmental factors such as government regulations and their associated legal and political mechanisms shape the ability of industries to compete (Peng, Sun, Pinkham, & Chen, 2009). The strategic relational approach and dynamic capabilities-based perspective shed light on how new governance modes affect tourism sustainability via LCCs. The Yamoussoukro Decision, formerly the ‘Africa Open Skies’ declaration, institutionally shapes Africa's AI.

In this context, the African Union is a social and political system, with its mutually constituting parts, for example, tourism and AI. Thus, the politics of the aviation sector recovery are its economics of recovery, and in that sense, they are mutually interdependent. For that reason, the strategic relational approach and dynamic capabilities theme explain the agency-structure selection of actors, which has temporal features of state intervention in exogenous and endogenous path dependencies.

1.2.1. Agency-structure relations and strategic selectivity

The strategic-relational approach and institutional-based dynamic capabilities are not deterministic perspectives unfolding in some predefined economic and institutionalized logic. Instead, institutions and their actors do operate in their subjective contexts (Jessop, 2008). In this context, the strategic selection of agency within the AU-HLTF questions actors' reflexive capabilities of taking a strategic view of the structural constraints of COVID-19 and strategically able to select their specific actions within those constraints imposed by COVID-19. Actors do this in the context of specific circumstances at conjunctures and processes, where they can transform social structures and turn structural constraints to operate through specific actors pursuing strategies in particular cases. In this context, the central theme remains how actor selection can turn structural constraints to the benefit of sustainable intra-tourism via LCCs.

1.2.2. Temporal features of state intervention and path dependence

In political economy, state interventions' are temporal features that highlight a historical materialist approach relevant to tourism and sustainability in destinations (Bramwell, 2011). The AU-HLTF is a form of state governing intervention. We examine the “idea of path dependence” within the AU-HLTFs intervention in the industry's restart and recovery. We investigate if the restart process is path-dependent in its moves if one direction elicits further actions in that same direction. In other words … the trajectory of change up to a certain point constrains the trajectory after that point“ (2005, p. 553). Path dependency is sequenced and descriptively “marked by relatively deterministic causal patterns” (Mahoney, 2000, p. 511). Path dependency ‘is now widely understood as a plausible argument to describe inertia, stability, and irreversibility in a broad range of contexts’ (Meyer & Schubert, 2007, p.23). In this scenario, the Yamoussoukro Declaration for open skies in Africa examines a form of state intervention to precondition for LCCs.

1.3. Towards ‘open skies’: An African single air African transport market (SAATM)

Achieving a liberalized air space has always been a challenge in Africa especially. As a result, an examination of precedence to open skies lays the background for the paper's central argument that LCCs have the potentials to increase intra-tourism.

Accordingly, in Africa, the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD), formerly the ‘Africa Open Skies’ declaration promulgated in 1999 by Heads of States of Africa, is the “landmark initiative to develop the industry through the removal of barriers by promoting the liberalization of the industry” (AU, 2005, p.1; Schlumberger, 2010, p.29). The Yamoussoukro Declaration is the decision on liberalizing access to air transport markets in Africa. It seeks to deregulate state ownership and, to an extend, harmonize the sector by integrating its: varying rules and regulations; and the differing standards of service based on regulated and Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BAAS) (AU, 2009). Clark (2014) claims the ‘open skies’ allowed for unrestricted access to the 44 member states who signed up initially in 1999. Similarly, the YD is a two-way governing process, steering nation-states from closed skies, transforming them into competitive “open skies.”

Typically, the YD “open skies” was to dismantle the bureaucratic hierarchy that hindered competition (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018). For this reason, under the auspices of “the Assembly of Head of States and Government, and adopted Declaration (Doc. Assembly/AU/Decl.1 (XXIV)) on the Establishment of a Single African Air Transport Market and also issued a commitment (Assembly/AUC/Commitment/XXIV), to the immediate implementation of the YD towards the establishment of a single African air transport market by 2017” (African Union, 2017, p. 2).

The precedence of the YD is the Chicago Convention. The latter sort of liberating substantially, hitherto, pre and post WWI & II 1940–1950 militarist ambitious airspaces capabilities of western governments (Brooks, 1967; Gourdin, 1998; Little & Grieco, 2011). That Convention would only result in three separate but interlinked dimensions of international regulation; “the bilateral air services agreements (ASAs), the inter-airline commercial or pooling agreements, and the tariff-fixing machinery of the International Air Transport Association (IATA)” (Doganis, 2006 pp. 27–28). Next, having laid forth the governance systems for sustainable tourism reboot, the paper turns policy learning and failure concepts into various forms: instrumental, conceptual, and political learning terms. The case accordingly identifies a failed policy and discusses its detailed features in the latter sections relative to the AU-HLTF and the YD. The reason being, there can only be a paradigmatic shift when the policy is said to have failed.

1.4. Policy learning: From a failed sustainable tourism governance perspective

Accordingly, the papers' main argument is the prioritization of sustainable tourism via LCCs post-COVID-19. Questioning key actors within the restart process prioritize sustainable tourism where policy, the YD, SAATM, and AU-HLTF are seen as having failed. A policy is learned in three ways: instrumentally, conceptually, and politically (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b). Therefore, basing on our findings, a claim is made of the imminent failure of prioritizing sustainability the need for a shift to paradigms that prioritizes sustainable tourism.

Policy failure occurs if a policy has failed to achieve an objective or perceived set of outcomes. Therefore, as governance allows for “mutual, interactive learning in image formation” (Kooiman, 2003, p.33), it is to suggest that we can only learn from policy failure, the process in which information becomes knowledge. Policy learning and its failure are insignificantly studied in tourism research (Kerr, 2003; Michael & Plowman, 2002). Therefore, Grin and Loeber (2007) have identified three ways of policy learning and failure process. They include instrumental or technical learning, an incremental modification of policy to pursue key goals (Bennett & Howlett, 1992; Hall, 1993). The second process is either a conceptual process or a social process with changes in common policy beliefs and paradigms (Hall, 1993; May, 1992). The third typology is where policy advocates have become more sophisticated by advancing ideas “to enhance the political feasibility of policy proposals” (May, 1992, p.332).

Given the above, the paper draws from (Hall, 1993, p 278) that the AU-HLTF must be “a deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to experience (aftermath of the financial crisis and Ebola virus) or new information provided through COVID-19. An indication of learning is when policy changes as the result of such a process. Three key elements, therefore, influencing learning within the AU-HLTF have been identified. They are the previous policy instruments that are influencing its current process than those ushered in by COVID-19. Secondly, the policy actors within the AU-HLTF are entrepreneurs with special interests that affect the interdependent relationship of the tourism and the aviation sector. Third, these actors are not insulated from external political pressures. It makes sense, therefore, that the establishment of the AU-HLTF must occasion changes.

For (Kooiman, 2003), policy learning is about governing orders in three ways. They include a first-order change which is incrementally routinized. There is a resulting change in the policy objective's primary instrument by the satisficing conduct of actors. A second-order exists where new policy instruments are selected based on previous policy experiences; however, the purpose remains. The third order exists where a new goal hierarchy results from the undermining of an extant policy.

2. Methodology and data collection

As the paper foregrounded in governance themes of political economy within social theory, the ultimate approach to its' data collection was through an inductive process (Bernard, 2011). We searched for patterns to develop explanations in theory utilized to gain insight theorizing of the AU-HLTF. The paper employs an inductive approach fused in a multi-method approach (see Table 1 below) to the study. Following (Gephart, 2004, p, 454–455: in Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007a, Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007b, p. 8), the paper employed a multi-method approach. The “multi-method research, … uses an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000)” and “addresses questions about how social experience is created and given meaning.” Our guide on the use of multi-method is because we utilize a case study to emphasize the rich, real-world context in which a phenomenon occurs. Since case studies employ various data sources (Yin, 2009) to provide detailed, empirical descriptions of particular instances of a phenomenon, the multi-approach was suitable. COVID-19 is occurring in a natural world context. Therefore, understanding its peculiarities or patterns through cases, as this paper demonstrates, would explain in hypothetical terms and real-world context how to develop and reboot the tourism sector.

Table 1.

Categorisation of data collection.

Observations	Topic of interest
Africa in a post-COVID world: what does it all mean?	Current situation and bright spots to invest in.
The view from clouds-Africa's aviation leaders	What opportunity exists for an alternative aviation system, which prioritizes intra-tourism
Just what is the “new normal” African airport experience	COVID-19 protocols and confidence in traveling to and within Africa
The future of airport financing in Africa	The continual struggle for state ownership and loss of sovereignty from foreign capital investment through key asset areas as airports and thereby airspaces in Africa
Organisation/Description	Number of interviewee (s)
Africa tourism partners	2
Africa World Airlines (AWA)	2
Africa Aviation, CEO	1
Rainmaker digital solution	1
Aviation development consultant	2
Tourism policy analyst	2

Source: Authors' Elaboration (2020).

Therefore, the paper identifies varied meanings of AI in Africa from social theoretical interpretations. As a result, data were collected as follows. First, we utilized six secondary peer-reviewed articles or pre-collected data (Heaton, 2004; Tight, 2019). The objective is systematic literature findings are replicable and transparent (Fisch & Block, 2018). The outcome was an attempt at updating and replicating results. We integrated and utilized the works of (Hall, 1993; Bramwell, 2011; Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b), to investigate new questions in this study.

Secondly, Table 1 are selected observations on particular topics concerning the papers' central objective and addressed by industry players in an online zoom seminar hosted by Africa Tomorrow on Reinventing resilience in Travel Hospitality Aviation from 21st -23rd of July 2020. There were 90 industry leaders from the African AI, tourism, and hospitality sectors who shared insights and answered key questions from participants. We then took notes for both observations and informal conversations through the enabled chatbox. Notes and themes from the observations and peer-reviewed data sources formed the bases to follow up on interviews.

We used a 5-point semi-structured interview guide because of the “episodic phenomenon” (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007a, Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007b, p.28) of COVID-19 on Africa's tourism industry. As a general framework, 10 participants in Table 1 below are key experts of the sectors investigated. They were interviewed and allowed free reign on the analytic themes on agency structure and strategic selectivity, temporal features of state intervention, among others—the Ten (10) persons from June 1st to 24th 2020. We then gathered more insights connecting or otherwise for a reboot towards sustainable and tourist-friendly carriers.

Transcribed interviews focused on the conceptually driven nature of the paper. The use of descriptive and explanatory NVivo coding techniques brought context into reality, “that which is alive,” from words or short phrases of the actual language found in the qualitative data record, “the terms used by [participants] themselves” (Strauss, 1987, p.33). Thus, that which is alive in context or space [emphasis], based on an exploratory and descriptive procedure, begins to identify […] key codes of the topic, not abbreviations of the content. The topic is what is talked about, written on, or referred to. The content is the substance of the message” (Tesch, 1990, p. 119). Accordingly, as an inductive approach, the selected themes are latent (Clarke & Braun, 2013), as and clear-cut as possible. We assembled six (6) themes upon winnowing, first codes themes into manageable few. These were then hierarchically categorized as parent themes linked to the study's theoretical dimensions in Fig. 1 , representing a defined set of themes. Therefore, as a trench for insights and not a controlled experiment, we gained insights from themes interspersed with key informants' quotes.

Fig. 1.

A proposed framework for low-cost aviation and tourism restart.

Source: Redrawn basing on (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018; AU-HLTF, 2020; Bramwell, 2011; Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b).

3. Findings and discussions

3.1. Conceptual framework

Accordingly, the paper proposed model in Fig. 1 is a creation of conceptual governance themes that have been foregrounded in the political economy of tourism and Africa's AI and introduced above as this section delves deeper into them. This proposed model is not about the oversimplification of the restart and recovery of the AI in Africa. Still, the aim is to provide an insightful pathway to a recovery that can sustainably develop intra-tourism via LCCs.

Conceptual frameworks in tourism research have been significantly emphasized (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b). For example, Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b, p.3) cites (Morgan, 1986, p.12), who admonishes us not to “take for granted images built by organizations.” For (Judge, Stoker, & Wolman, 1995, p. 3 in Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b, p. 3) have echoed, conceptual frameworks “provide a and frame of reference through which reality can be examined and lead theorists to ask questions that might not otherwise occur. The result, if successful, is new and fresh insights that other frameworks or perspectives might not have yielded”. Accordingly, the AU-HLTF restarting and recovering the aviation sector is not without theory, as the image of an end goal guides it; see (Morgan, 1986). As such, the AU-HLTF implicitly is a theory of policymaking. The need being and following (Blume, 1977a, Blume, 1977b, p.253), the AU-HLTF is “theorizing about what?” or [what is it not theorizing about]. We investigate theory in policymaking behind the AU-HLTFs reasoning to,

“review of COVID-19 related documents to be presented to Transport Sub-Committee of the Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Transcontinental and Interregional Infrastructure, Energy and Tourism (AU-STC) and other organs of the AU.”

AU-HLTF, 2020, p. 10c.

For that reason, the paper's conceptual framework, at this point, combines the language of the theorizing language of the AU-HLTF with the case's theoretical language foregrounded within the analytical themes in social theory. Therefore, the papers' model is not one size fits all, but rather, is contextual, not general (Stoker, 1998). It thus is the policy language of the AU-HLTF and industry in its' recovery and restarts within the political economy. For this reason, the result, if successful, is new while providing fresh insights for a paradigm shift leading to sustainable tourism. Fig. 1 thus, foregrounds political economy themes in both tourism and aviation sectors to create a governing archetype which is the paradigm sort after, hence sustainable tourism restart, via LCCs. The first three variants are the strategic agencies within the AU-HLTF.

In comparison, the subsequent two variants are comparative conceptual governance themes in both the aviation and tourism sectors, where the comparative combinations of themes do not lead to LCCs. Therefore, a paradigm shift in recombining governing types: a mix of hierarchical-market-network governing typology that the AU-HLTF lacks currently has the transformative potential to a sustainable intra-tourism future LCCs. Consequently, a proposed governance framework in Fig. 2 models on this proposed typology bearing an argument for a paradigm shift to intra-tourism via low-cost carriers.

Fig. 2.

A proposed governance framework that links AI with tourism.

Source: Authors' elaboration from (Hall, 2011a).

3.2. The political economy of the tourism and the AI in Africa; a strategic relational approach and dynamic capabilities in its restart

The African Union Commission (AUC) steers regional affairs. Africa as a region “is not as a tightly bounded space, but as a porous territorial formation whose national boundaries straddle a broad range of network connections” (Amin, 2002); see also (Coe, Hess, Yeung, Dicken, & Henderson, 2004, p.469). Therefore, the relational perspective builds on holistic and dialectical perspectives of the dynamic capabilities of the AU-HLTF and its multiple and reciprocal relations between tourism and the aviation sector. For instance, in the sense of a holistic, relational, and dialectical way, both sectors in Africa saw a loss of −58.5% when compared with the rest of the world (IATA, 2020). For example, Elcia Grand court, the UNWTO Africa Director, in an interview with Africa News Zimbabwe, pieces the two by stating,

Indeed the tourism and travel sector has been hard hit with this pandemic, and in Africa [as you know] since last year, we have had positive growth, but now with the arrival of the pandemic since the end of March, the results are a decrease of − 44% in terms of international arrivals in Africa, this is basically due to the closure of borders, the travel restrictions that have been imposed from the source market as well as from the continent itself

Africanews, 2020

Airlines are registering a net loss of USD 42 per passenger for the rest of 2020. Negative net revenue is commonplace for the African aviation sector. Therefore, the paper observes that the agency relationship within the AU-HLTF builds on assumptions of material interdependence and a materialist interest. There is an absence of a reboot to sustainability or even a tilt prioritizing intra-tourism via LCCs. This historical materialism has equally been observed by (Clark, 2014) through African airlines' historical undercut by their competitive foreign peers over the years. The latter is made uncompetitive by the former. Secondly, the paper observes the African AI's dynamic capabilities as dialectically materialist in implementing the YD. It explains the theory behind its institutionally shaped Agenda of execution within the AU. Despite the interdependent relationship, the paper under our second theme discusses the materialist interaction in the restart process, manifested in the agency's structuring.

3.3. Agency structure and strategic selectivity

The actors' relationship in Fig. 1 above is selectively materialist and strategically so (Jessop, 2008). It suggests that the actor-agency relationship in the restart of the sector is not without bias and is neither objective. Agency structure and strategic selectivity under the AU-HLTF from the Marxist political economy viewpoint is historical materialist. Thus, the restart and recovery steering mechanism created is [to be understood as], what is being recovered, how and by and for whom (Dunn, 2009). For (Bramwell, 2011; Callinicos, 1989), the mode of production is therefore not always immediately known to actors in a Marxist political economy. For this paper, and for this case, the restart by AU-HLTF is materialist exploitation that has forged complex relations to survive post-COVID-19. Building a process around intra-tourism is lacking. The steering of the AU-HLTF has been strategic, with actors selected in a manner that the aviation sector retains its hegemony over the tourism sector. In terms of agency, three (3) working groups are created for which the aviation sector has Fourteen (14) agencies. AFRAA-UNECA inconspicuously represents the tourism industry instead of its direct agency, the AU Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Transcontinental Infrastructure, Energy and Tourism (AU-STC, TTIET). A regional tourist consultant says,

Exactly, that is the point I am raising; it tells you that although it is there, it has not been profiled properly as a priority, it [is not been] positioned as a priority sector, although Agenda 2063 and ACFTA, tourism is critical, but possibly in looking at this, they have not. However, having said that, you are right; tourism in Africa is not a priority; it is within the AU level and across the continent.

Interviewee 5, 2020

The agency's materialist structuring is due to sub-regional governments having ceded inter-continental operations to foreign carriers, with indigenous [Tourist] airlines playing a marginal role in intercontinental operations. For instance, a regional consultant says,

Governments are beginning to think no [no] probably we should prioritize somewhere else, forget about the low carriers if the tourist would come, they can come on any other airline, [we don't] mind anyone who can fly them in here, we are ok. Also partly because, many of them on the continent are not government-owned and so they cannot be bothered, and like [I] indicated earlier on, many of these airlines are not also profitable…so now why would [you] want to keep pouring water into a [leaking baskets] would be the thinking of some of the governments…ok if they do not have the money and they would stop the operation fine, they can stop, others would come.

Interviewee 1, 2020

In that sense, (Bramwell, 2006, p.959) argues “the contingent and complex interplay between structures and actors… always have some room for maneuver, even under the most extreme structural constraints”. Weaver & Oppermann (2000, p.353) suggest that “sustainable tourism is susceptible to appropriation by those wishing to pursue a particular political agenda”. Under these circumstances, the agency under the AU-HLTF operates a strategic interest. The recovery plan's immediate strategy focuses on cargo and supply chain-oriented (AU-HLTF, 2020: ANNEX 3:1). These actors, inappropriately, distort the present opportunity to reconnect the tourism sector via low-cost carriers with the regions' aviation in Africa in the future. Therefore, COVID-19, above all, risks grounding further the few inter-regional flights and widens the gap between the large, foreign carriers and indigenous carriers. The former eventually will outperform and crowd out the indigenous and smaller carriers because the former, unlike the latter, have favorable tax breaks and are mostly state-protected. Their dominance would worsen the already poor connectivity in the region. For instance, a key participant interviewed added,

So, my message to African governments is that if we are not careful, by the time we open the borders, we would have less the airlines we have in the continent today back in the air. So, we are going now to have bigger gaps and worse connectivity before, now; how is this going to facilitate the free trade area and tourism? I don't know? The AFCTA is not intended for non-African operators; it is intended for Africa operators. If we do not have the Africa operators, how are we going to execute that?

Participant 1, 2020

Agency structuring is materialist and configured to create an unequal representation of hitherto two interdependent sectors. It suggests the perpetuating of tourism's underdevelopment and the restart processes' ergodicity.

3.4. Temporal features of state intervention: Exogenous and endogenous mixed path dependencies

Africa's aviation sector's condition precedent, which de-links it significantly from the tourism industry, is the YD's status quo, formerly the ‘Africa Open Skies’ declaration. Promulgated in 1999 by Heads of States of Africa, the YD's central theme is its implementation across the continent. Accordingly, the African Union (2005, p. 1), in its decision Relating to the Implementation of the Yamoussoukro Declaration, states the YD is a “landmark initiative to develop the industry through the removal of barriers by promoting the liberalization of the industry” (Schlumberger, 2010, p.29). To clarify, it sought to deregulate state ownership and, to an extent, harmonize the sector by integrating its: varying rules and regulations; and the differing standards of service based on regulated and Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BAAS) (AU, 2009). However, the AU-HLTF cannot be assumed to be non-ergodic. The paper argues past probabilities have manifested in the future process of AU-HLTF. The AU-HLTF is thus, locked into an irreversible condition. That condition being Africa lacks a continental air transport strategy that ties into a continent-wide tourism strategy. The YD serving as the central theme of prioritizing sustainable travel via LCCs has not been implemented. A participant states,

There is no continental strategy to develop air transport. So, air transport development is left to individual states, and in most states, the development has been left to foreign private investments that do not focus on tourists.

Interviewee 3, 2020

The YD remains a working document that lacks mindful plans of execution (Njoya, 2016). Member states who initially signed up for the “open skies” in 1999 reported by (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018) were 44; on the contrary, 21 of them have signed up for the real deal, the Single Air Transport Market (SAATM) (African Union, 2017). The consequences, the paper found, are poor connectivity, reduced competition leading to poor service quality of intra-regional air routes; relatively higher air fees; and a continental-wide deprivation of economic development associated with air transport. A key respondent says,

Because that connectivity is a critical issue on the continent, we have serious issues in [actually] getting the continent well connected and well-integrated, purposely for Business and trade. So that is what we have today. Unfortunately, the support system, the entire aviation eco-systems, is not well developed across the continent; in the last ten years, Eleven years probably, African Airlines collectively have only made a profit in one year. Thus, if you aggregate all profit and losses of all African airlines since 2010 and 2020, thus the last ten years, they only made a profit of just a hundred million dollars.

Interviewee 2, 2020

These are exogenous and endogenous processes on the YD that smacks the sovereign regulatory state's internal clash versus the market. National carriers have become populist and would remain so and not enable either for low-cost aviation. For example, “when an African government owns an airline, and it becomes a national carrier, it is a different thing, for some governments it is not necessarily for profit…but to promote the flag of the country” (Interviewee 2, 2020). Another added,

The aviation industry started like everywhere in the world as state-owned or state-run entities, but in more recent times, we have seen that government is not a [good business man], the government is not good at running a business, and the sector has literally collapsed, [I] mean the government airlines are dead and gone and the ones that are there are likely weaker and we have seen in their place, private sector involvement in the industry in many countries.

Interviewee 1, 2020

In this case, the YD's administrative and policy orientations affect internal functional and political lock-ins (Grabher, 1993; Ma & Hassink, 2013). First, a functional lock- is observed in the hierarchical, close inter- actor relationships, which has relegated tourism. Secondly, the Political lock-ins observed are thick institutional tissues aiming at preserving existing aviation structures where the big airliners, the Emirates, KLMs dominate. In practice, the AU-HLTF is an example of new governance with consent to function outside national governments, with diverse actors and specific interests where tourism is the least concern. An interviewee admits as such,

Yeah, some of the actors should not have been involved, but the institutional thickness is due to the multiplicity of actors involved and supervised by the AU, so in order not to lose vital components of the restart process, we had to include multiple actors

Interviewee 1, 2020

Externally, historical foreign interest in Africa's airspace is a path-dependent process that has undermined air development (Clark, 2014).

However, following observation by (Bramwell, 2006; Gill & Williams, 2014), the AU-HLTF essentially created an agency gap, where agency and urgency are decided outside the context of key regional or national actors' whole tourism sector, adding to its ambiguous and vague targets. The HLTF has established a technocratic authority outside its context. Its techniques [the mastery or art], the ‘methods and procedures of governing’ (Behrent, 2013:55), insignificantly prioritize tourism. Two agencies, the AU-HLTF and the UNWTO-Africa decide outside each other's context without any links whatsoever is contrary to calls for collaboration. For example, the UNWTO-African Director states,

[…] African Union through the task force…and again I can only emphasize this can only happen through partnerships, cooperation [tourist agency] and political will at the local level between the member states.

Africanews, 2020

Correspondingly, the AU-HLTF has embarked on a specific administrative path-dependent course of action that insignificantly links tourism restart to the aviation sector restart. Agency is taken within a particular order, and therefore, proceeding in that manner is more likely than steps in a different direction. For example, the UNWTO-Africa Agenda to Accelerate tourism Recovery, dubbed “Brand Africa Challenge” (UNWTO-Africa, 2020a, UNWTO-Africa, 2020b:1), seeks to prioritize tourism restart.

To illustrate further, the AU-DAs' 2063, under Goal 4, links regional economic transformation and job creation to tourism. The AU projects by 2063, tourism will contribute to a 100% GDP in real terms, which in reality lacks. Tourism is a crucial element in all three key Flagship projects. For example, AFCTA is business tourism. The SAATM would enable tourism in all forms, and so too would the Free Movement of all persons and the Africa Passport. Contrarily, these critical projects that boost tourism are not inclusive of its' appropriate agency, The AU Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Transcontinental Infrastructure, Energy and Tourism, AU-STC (TTIET).

Moreover, the perception associated with tourism in Africa; is a shared worldview or mindset (Grabher, 1993; Hassink, 2010). For them, it is an attribute of cognitive lock-in and has found its way explicitly in the restart process. Politicians and their associates have come up with policies and then impose upon the rest of the population [tourism]: a set of political rationalities that they hope will trickle down and, in course, to a sustainable tourism sector in Africa. Basically, […] “policy is about the exercise of political power and the language used to legitimate that process” (Codd, 1988:235; Tight, 2019:122). A participant added,

To the extent that when our politicians and policymakers are talking about tourism, they are [actually] referring to international tourists and not the next-door neighbor, it's the [honest] truth. And to the locals themselves, when they say they are going for holidays, [they] are going to Dubai, [they] are going to Europe, they are going to North America. Our mentality of who a tourist is is [actually] short of what it ought to be. To a greater extent, we need to change that; we need to look at movements within countries, within the sub-region, and within the continent as tourism and promotion and look at international trips as tourism.

Interviewee 1, 2020

Similarly, neo-liberal language defines the world (Fazal & Lingard, 2010; Hursh, Henderson, & Greenwood, 2015). In the language of the AU and the Agenda 2063, and in the sense that policies are institutional patterns enduring over time and space, they tend to reflect on actors' conduct passed on to subjects (Streeck & Thelen, 2005). The formalized rules in the draft policy are the language of an agency outside its context. For instance,

I think up until now, I [think] tourism is hardly promoted. Especially if you look at West Africa, which [promotes] tourism, we talk about tourism, we do not [promote] it, …is a mixed basket while airlines want to generate the most revenue, today tourist do not necessarily pay the most [revenue], if they can get business traffic, they would go for that, [than] tourist traffic which is low yield, but [I] bet you if there is competition, airlines will diversify to include tourist traffic but if today capacity is limited why not give it to the highest bidder and that is why fares are much higher in Africa than elsewhere.

Interviewee 1, 2020

In the instances of the AU-HLTF, the regional steering or governing body is an example of a historical process accentuated by a historical materialist practice that does not prioritize tourism. Tourism non-prioritization is politically [policy-wise] and administratively expressed in the YD and SAATM.

4. Learning from failure: the YD and AU-HTF

Typically, the AU-HLTF is a social and political relationship from a strategic-relational perspective within a comparative political economy. Therefore, the YD and AU-HLTF are constituting parts of the whole. It is governing the totality of private and public interactions, […] and establishing normative foundations of all those activities…it is equally the totality of theoretical conceptions of the governing (Kooiman, 2003, p. 4). In other words, the AU-HLTF is the totality of governing relationships of everything aviation and tourism restart and recovery.

The paper then observes and argues similarly on the political economy of the AU-HLTF based on Harvey's (1996, p. 11) “historical-geographical materialism.” Consequently, the AU-HLTF as a form of government intervention is affected by past circumstances and legacies, which currently constrains subsequent development. For example, YD, which has not been implemented and characteristically failed because of its “fuzzy and difficult nature” (Hall, 2011b) even in actors' assessment of the word “implementation.” For instance,

one could conclude that using the term implementation in relation to the YD is a pleonasm because the YD itself is the decision to implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration of 1988. Alternatively, one could also state that implementation stands for applying the YD framework because its legal implementation was achieved at the time of its adoption by heads of state in 1999, …in a legal and political sense by the term implementation of a treaty, which in this case is the implementation of a declaration or intent to liberalize air services, … “in political science, implementation refers to the carrying out of public policy. Legislatures pass laws that are then carried out by public servants working in bureaucratic agencies. This process consists of rulemaking, rule-administration, and rule-adjudication. Factors impacting implementation include the legislative intent, the administrative capacity of the implementing bureaucracy, interest group activity and opposition, and presidential or executive support.

Schlumberger, 2010, p.30

The SAATM, the paper argues similarly to (David, 1994, p.206), is the “present state of arrangements with some originating context or set of circumstances and interpolates some sequence of connecting events that allow the hand of the past to exert a continuing influence upon the shape of the present.” SAATM the main deal and sequels the YDs exerting influence on the present, contrary to the claims above. Its' membership's commitment has dwindled from the Forty-four as of 1998 to its current Twenty-one member states signing up to it in 2017.

Secondly, tourism restart in Africa under the AU-HLTF is affected by a hegemonic agency-structure relationship and selective strategic bias as agencies struggle to compete with ‘winners’ even ‘outside’ such actor-agency domains. Thirdly due to a historical path dependence process, tourism is not being prioritized. Therefore, intra-tourism underdevelopment via the aviation industry is a condition precedent of the YD layered within the AU-HLTF. In other words, intra-tourism or tourism development and subsequently restart has not been prioritized significantly because of the failure in the YD implementation.

Thirdly, the paper also observed, presently, Africa lacks a continental air transport strategy that ties into a continent-wide tourism strategy.

Fourthly, the AU's ideological solid underpinnings mean it distances itself from failure to remain fit for purpose and still appropriate to itself, Pan-Africanism. In other words, the ideological stance of the AUC shifts blame on the European Union (EU) and has failed to acknowledge failure willingly. For example, the AUC claims that the EU has received Africa's “open skies” with a negative policy position (AU, 2005). That claim is an instance of looking for low-hanging fruits to lay blame at, even as research (Njoya, 2016) indicates the contrary.

For emphasis, historical legacies have influenced the contemporary reboot to sustainable tourism via LCCs, with agencies having skewed interest under the contingency of COVID-19, and thirdly, these agencies have external influences that render tourism unsustainable. For that reason, the paper drawing on (Grin & Loeber, 2007) has observed the AU is undergoing a learning process in three ways; instrumentally, there is a constant adjustment of existing policy instruments to achieve its entire goal (Hall, 2011b). In this regard, (Schlumberger, 2010) has established a series of such interventions. The latest being 2017 on the adoption and implementation of the SAATM (African Union, 2017). Conceptual learning is concerned with the changing social beliefs in the phase of policy implementation (Hall, 2011b). Legacy of state sovereignty and ownership (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018) and regulation and political conditions (Njoya, 2016) are critical conceptual learning phases in implementing the YD, subsequently enduring in the AU-HLFT. The third learning process is the political learning process, where there is a distinction between strategic behavior and a genuine shift in policy beliefs. The YD prospects are well-documented (Njoya, 2016; Schlumberger, 2010); however, the actual intent of its being, thus the SAATM, is the paradigm lacking. For (Hall, 1993, p. 279), a “policy paradigm” is the “framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments used to attain them but also the very nature of the problems they address.” For that reason, the paper follows (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b; Kooiman, 2003) to identify three orders of governance associated with the YD and AU-HLTF that have failed. A first-order change is characterized by incremental, routinized, satisficing behavior that is based around government officials and policy experts that leads to a change in the “levels (or settings) of the basic instruments of … policy” (Hall, 1993, p.279). In this instance, the heterogeneity and “balkanization of the continent into 54 air transport markets with varied sizes, raises concerns about the potential benefits of liberalization of the skies” to smaller states (Njoya, 2016, p. 5). That suggests the YD and SAATM remain ink on paper until an acceptable threshold.

Second-order change is selecting new policy instruments, techniques, and policy settings due to previous policy experience. Still, the overarching policy goals remain the same (Hall, 1993). In this context, the series of Air transport ministerial conferences have devised techniques of reaching fuller policy implementation of the YD. For instance, the YD was born in 1998, though initially discussed in 1994 in Mauritius. In this sense, each air transport minister's conference always had a plan on the main Agenda; the SAATM. Similarly, the Suncity meeting in South Africa set the legal instruments' decisions on protecting consumers of air transport services (AU, 2005). Finally, “with the full implementation of the YD, ultimately, the SAATM will evolve into a common aviation area” (African Union, 2017, p.3).

Third-order change, or a policy paradigm shift, occurs when policymakers adopt a new goal hierarchy because the coherence of existing policy paradigm(s) has been undermined (Hall, 1993). The paper found this commonplace in the case of the YD; for example, “Like almost all pan-African agreements to date, the YD has been only partially applied, and seen in comparison with the multi-lateral experience of the EU, it would seem to be a failure” (Njoya, 2016, p.8).

The need for a paradigm shift in this paper is not to replace the YD intent, which is a single common aviation area. With a paradigm shift, the article has demonstrated a policy failure that does not prioritize tourism within the same common aviation area. The paper has also established three key theoretical governance models underpinning the AU-HLTF. Typologies as categories of organized systems are not uncommon in tourism research and political science (Bailey, 1994; Box-Steffensmeier, Brady, & Collier, 2008; George & Bennett, 2005; Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b). Following (Collier, Laporte, & Seawright, 2008), this paper's typology is both explanatory and descriptive, where institutional variables form-critical empirical and theoretical insights for change. Our typology is both an attribute of institutional and policy variables.

4.1. A governance typology of a hierarchical market networking

According to this paper, contemporary governance means steering the public sector in a neo-liberal direction where the yardstick is to transform public policy in market ways. In that sense, the policy has become a theoretical language and a constructed image of understanding social change (Blume, 1977a). The papers' typology in Fig. 2 builds on (Hall, 2011a). A three-fold model encompassing hierarchies, markets, and networks developed as steering typologies is truly a paradigmatic shift towards sustainable, low-cost tourist carriers post COVID-19.

Naturally, the study's archetype is not the only key governing strategy of its kind. However, it is significant because (Amankwah-Amoah, 2018) illustrated the uncompetitive nature of the African air space, which for this paper, is the result of a historical, and hegemonic capitalist relationship manifested in the restart process between aviation and tourism sectors. The paper demonstrates the regions' capitalist and materialist relations occurring across varied policy decisions and or governing phases, such as the AU, YD, and now the AU-HLTF. However, this typology's uniqueness is its conceptualization of the different hierarchies and actor agency networks in both industries. The conceptualized model bridges the gap presently as an analytic tool to explain the emergence of the AU-HLTF, an insignificantly sustainable-focused pathway to prioritizing intra-tourism via LCCs in restarting the aviation sector. In the future, the papers' typology is for essential transferability of ideals as it draws on social theory. This model, therefore, incorporates the failures in the YD in these episodic moments of COVID-19 by creating an alternative that fuses the Pan-African sovereign pride with an open market that networks all key actors in the political economy of the African air space.

First, this typology suits the AU-HLTF's materialist and agency selectivity biasing towards cargo carriages. Furthermore, the agency to restart tourism lies outside the domains of its appropriate agency, the AU-Sectoral Technical Committee on Transport, Energy, and Tourism (AU-STCTET) which this model incorporates. However, post-COVID-19 must mark a paradigm shift which the current restart and recovery have not established, by which this typology addresses.

Secondly, the AU is dualized in its Agenda, ideological ideals [Pan-Africanism], yet seeking 2063 a fuller SAATM or liberalization. Thus, the typology strikes the balance of Pan-Africanism and liberalism. For that reason, this typology creates low-cost carriers which would boost intra-tourism, which this paper seeks to be the “new normal.” Intra-tourism must be the “new normal” or paradigm. Intra-tourism is the “new normal” built around low-cost tourist-friendly carriers. Intra-tourism is to constitute the new tilt going forward, to create a balance between aviation and tourism. Building on (Amankwah-amoah & Debrah, 2009), the emergence of low-cost carriers is possible in Africa; both internal and external drivers are conditioning for this, and COVID-19 is offering a reasonable thrust in that direction.

Internal hierarchies in Fig. 2 can steer into further partnerships the SAATM, with an economy of scale of Twenty-one (21) making up 625 million people, and 1.5 billion dollars in GDP terms, and with eight (8) of the ten (10) busiest airports in Africa accounting for 70% of intra-African air market through AFRAA networks and alliances of Sixteen (16) carriers (African Union, 2017). In that sense of the available economies of scale, LLCs are possible on a via.

single fleet type; the elimination of in-flight services; the high use of secondary airports; direct sale; e-ticketing; short-haul, point-to-point flights in dense markets with no interlining or transfer; a simple network structure; absent or weak feed to long-range flights; single cabin layout; no frequent flyer program, and an optimal level of fleet utilization (Schlumberger & Weisskopf, 2014. p. 42).

The single fleet type is the model by which easyJet operates. The opportunity, therefore, exists to create sixteen LCCs that prioritize tourism. The Sixteen can, by plugging into alliance and partnerships of AFRAA, European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), given the fact that these current partnerships and alliances have failed to promote significant intra-regional travel for leisure and holidays. For example, with the largest market share of 23% as of 2015, the Star Alliance has only 3 (EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, and South African Airlines) African airlines within its 27-membership fold. With its 15 memberships, one World Alliance has no representative in Africa, while SkyTeam, with a membership of 20 airlines, has only Kenyan airways.

Besides, joining the SAATM is based on the variable geometry principle of an independent determination of member states, thus challenging the balkanized and heterogeneous markets (Njoya, 2016; Schlumberger, 2010) to get resolved. There are only gains in joining with insignificant losses; for other carriers entering, they are not only benefiting from the current economies of scale (70% air traffic and a 625 Million market). Secondly, the executive body's powers and functions (though yet to be formed) protect new entrants from unfair competition rules, protect their new clientele base from extra charges, and settle disputes amicably (African Union, 2017). Similarly, the YD implementation, which ultimately rests on the current 21 SAATM, caters to tourism because the AU-Sectoral Technical Committee on Transport, Energy, and Tourism (AU-STCTET) is the direct technical executing agency or monitoring body for the institutional and regulatory supervision under the SAATM. These reasons enumerated, build on (Amankwah-amoah & Debrah, 2009) as internal drivers aiding low-cost carriers, but this time, these low-cost carriers the paper advocates for are also tourist-friendly and cheaper empirically.

Externally, the world is experiencing a temporal de-globalization in two forms; first, the Bretton Woods system's neo-liberal Agenda is limited. Secondly, the near reversing time-space shrinking technologies like the aircraft (Agnew, 2001; Harvey, 1989; Niewiadomski, 2020). Consequently, as (Niewiadomski, 2020, p.4) observed, “heavy travel restrictions and the suspension of international travel, geographical barriers between places have re-emerged, relative distances have increased, and remote places have again become truly remote.” Consequently, the process of de-globalization has halted international travel. Internally, COVID-19 has not spared Africa. For instance, the outbreak will also pose a severe threat to the realization of the AU Agenda 2063 flagship projects and slowdown gains already made in the implementation of the YD, the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA), as well as the Protocol on the free movement of persons and removal of visa restrictions” (AU-HLTF, 2020:5).

COVID-19 has revived the nation-state even within liberalized and deregulated markets of the EU (Niewiadomski, 2020). COVID-19 has therefore brought to light the limits of neoliberal orthodoxy and its promises of attaining sustainable development to the temporal return to national governments, thus shrinking globalization and time-space technologies.

Within Africa, COVID-19 lessons to be learned must include rescaling towards regionalism. Regionalism, for this paper, is a reboot towards intra-tourism promoted by indigenous carriers. These are cheap and a tilt away from the norm. Regionalism is a commitment to equity in making specific changes in the AU practices and its visions for tourism. It is relinking tourism by focusing on capitalist models that create resilience for LCCs to reset to transformations that reflect on the sustainability of intra-tourism.

Given the above, the paper is significant because the most probable effect of COVID-19 is arguably proximity tourism, to mean doing tourism and traveling nearer a tourist's home (Jeuring & Haartsen, 2017; Navarro et al., 2020; Romagosa, 2020). In that manner, intra-tourism can be the “central idea of sustainability-as flourishing” (Cheer, 2020, p. 520). A key participant then puts it in this manner,

The unfortunate thinking has always been that if we don't have locals flying, foreigners would fly in and [I] always say that, foreigners would come in during good times and when times are tough, they would not, … in the last couple of months many Africa countries have realized the truth. When COVID-19 hit, and traffic disappeared, the foreign airlines were not available to even bring you the medical supply to support your health sector, and that is the extent to which we need airlines on this continent

Interviewee 3, 2020

In this respect, to some extent, this could be the new configuration or creative destruction, for example, Schumpeter (1943, in Boschma & Martin, 2007; Niewiadomski, 2020) from the shock of COVID-19. The momentary reality and temporal opportunity are insights for change (Brouder, 2020; Sanz-Ibáñez, Wilson, & Anton Clavé, 2017). A change to a re-discovery of tourism, a chance to avoid the Business as usual, and re-develop tourism in Africa, the focus is alleviating poverty in all forms with tourism playing a more significant part. It is an opportunity to avoid the exploitative global production networks associated with tourism in Africa (Christian, 2016). While the destruction is known, and with regional domestic flights having commenced, on July 21st, international flights began from September 1st. Filling the void of destruction is tilting flights to being tourist-friendly and thereby enhancing intra-tourist activities.

An operator, for instance, is quoted as,

[…] it is a good time for you to restructure and rebound better; unfortunately, because now some routes have become vacant, it becomes advantageous for other airlines to pick up those opportunities and re-strategies, make strategic alliances and partnerships, mergers, strategic partnership agreements and take up the opportunities that will prevail

Interviewee 2, 2020

Another operator added that,

On the brighter side, low and unprofitably carriers can be [tourist] friendly carriers. [They] can pick up and plan properly, properly planning means that, within your confines, within your region, [The AU-DA] can now properly employ strategies and identifying which route would be practicable and which is not, and re-aligning on [your] network, streamlining it properly, and take advantage of routes that [cargo and Business] carriers were ordinarily flying and may not fly

Interviewee 4, 2020

Therefore, our hybrid typology is crucial and novel in creating and refining a reboot to resilience, suggesting an interactional perspective involving varied actors at all levels.

4.2. Conclusion, limitations, and future research

This paper sought to examine by conceptualizing the governance architecture in Africa's aviation and tourism sectors restart ushered in by COVID-19. Accordingly, this paper argues governance formation is underpinned by strategic-relational approach, agency structure, strategic selectivity, and temporal features of state interventions to systematically develop a governance typology that prioritizes sustainable tourism via LCCs. The typology set, both descriptive and explanatory variables (Box-Steffensmeier et al., 2008; Collier et al., 2008). By description, the themes indicated governance relationships that steer processes. The resultant typology is framed on hierarchies, markets, a network of alliances, and communities of nations. In that sense, the insightful examination of tourism governance under the broader frameworks and structures of the AU-HLTF, the YD, and SAATM, and the relevant links of these structures in regional aviation and tourism development illustrates how governance is a continuum of change of which COVID-19 provides an opportunity to examine that change. In that sense, change in governance is beyond policy, but theory (Blume, 1977a; Stoker, 1998), which the paper theorized, the AU-HLTF is not prioritizing sustainability of intra-regional tourism via LCCs. The papers' novelty resides in its ability for transferability of governance themes underpinned by social theory. We admit that our proposed governance framework is a simplified microcosm of the complex governing approaches of two sectors.

4.3. Implications

The typology's significance is in the way we have analyzed policy within and between different institutions. We argued actors were strategically selected and not interactional as mutual constituting parts of the social system in the restart and recovery process. Therefore, our typology is a hybrid or interactional archetype (Saetren, 2005; Schofield & Sausman, 2004), making it a third generational archetype in policy implementation studies (Goggin, Bowman, Lester, & O'Toole Jr, 1990). Following (Hall, 2011a, Hall, 2011b) the typology is applicable in regional studies of treaties, protocols, and conventions, as seen in the AU-HLTF, discussed here. For this reason, our typology has both practical and theoretical implications.

Practically, our typology acknowledges governance at the AU level relative to the AU-HLTF and the interplay of structure and agency networks and the allocation of power, which inherently has hindered the YD implementation. The YD is the status quo, with the AU its' ‘history carrier’ (David, 1994, p. 205) grounded in sound Pan-African traditionalism. The consequence being the non-prioritization of sustainable intra-tourism via low-cost carriers in the restart and recovery of Africas' aviation industry. Practically, the AU-HLTF actors are motivated by a historical hegemonic interest that draws contrary to sustainable tourism restart. Suggestively there is an insignificant desire for change. Therefore, in this paper, we advocate for the AU to re-align on extra-regional carrier networks to feed and de-feed into each other while being competitive. Secondly, airport taxes have been extremely high in the past and the accordingly low-cost carriers and high prices on tickets on the other hand. Thirdly the available flights do not have volume because not all African countries have signed the SAATM, the YD, thus a limited open skies policy.

Consequently, flights are costly, and with COVID-19, their sustainability is in doubt. Practically, the institutions identified and their administrative processes need momentary savviness. Admitting with urgency the appropriate agencies, for example, the AU-STC (TTIET) and the UNWTO-Africa, which include national agencies to incorporate reasonably and explore regional corridors and bridges already present to promote intra-tourism.

Theoretically, by proposing a governing archetype, we transfer and test key themes in two cases, of which literature on political economy on policy implementation and learning is insignificant in Africa. For theory, the notion of governance in tourism is often conceived under a broad framework that this paper argues is the theory behind any tourism policy. Furthermore, we understand from theory the conceptual reasoning underpinning any tourism policy. In our case, the theory behind the restart of the aviation sector is not prioritizing tourism and sustainably. Consequently, new thinking to the continent's aviation sector is needed since tourism forms a key goal under Agenda 2063, which ties its three flagship programs; the ACFTA, the SAATM, and the Free African Visa and Passport Programs. However, the working draft to restart and recover the industry does not prioritize tourism sustainably and just means the ‘new normal’ or ‘old Business, as usual, nothing changing, nothing new.

Biography

Ayiine-Etigo David Ania is graduating doctoral student from the department of Geography and Environment, at the University of Aberdeen. He has interest in the Political Economy of the Green Economy transition in Africa, with focus on tourism and energy transitions. He currently has working book chapter and two other papers. David obtained a Bachelor's in Political Science and Classical history from the University of Ghana, Legon.