Mali’s once-robust tourism sector has dried up in recent years after an iron-fisted junta came to power in consecutive coups in 2020 and 2021 and as al-Qaeda-linked extremists waged a campaign of attacks.
“Under my nails there is no longer the sacred ground of Djenne, but engine grease,” Cisse told AFP, overcome by nostalgia for his former life.
Cisse left after the security situation deteriorated in the city, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is home to the Great Mosque of Djenne, the largest adobe structure in the world.
Now he focuses on feeding his children, hoping they will remember that their father was once “a guide, a man of culture.”
“I could talk to you for three hours about family lineages, mosque minarets and why adobe walls never collapse in the rain,” he told AFP.
“The tourists listened to me with their eyes wide open, they wrote everything in their little notebooks,” he said.
Out of favor
Since 2012, Mali has faced a deep security crisis, fueled by attacks not only by extremists linked to Al-Qaeda, but also those with links to the ISIS group, as well as criminal networks.
The country, which has four UNESCO World Heritage sites, was long a major destination for those interested in West African culture, before gradually falling out of favor with foreign tourists.
The sites range from the historic city of Timbuktu to the Askia Mud Tomb in Gao, which UNESCO says “bears witness to the power and riches” of an empire that flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries thanks to its control of trans-Saharan trade.
However, tourists have disappeared from UNESCO sites and many other iconic places for more than a decade.
“Westerners used to visit Timbuktu and the sand dunes. Now there is nothing,” said Sidy Keita, director of Mali Tourism, the national tourism promotion agency.
The security crisis in Mali has led to the “abandonment of destinations, the closure of some tourist establishments and the destruction of others, as well as the dismissal or temporary layoff of employees,” according to the Mali Tourism website.
Meanwhile, “many hotels have closed due to lack of customers. What’s worse, the owners are in debt,” a member of the Mali Hoteliers Association told AFP.
According to Mali Tourism, between 200,000 and 300,000 tourists visited Mali each year during its peak tourist season, generating annual revenues of around 120 billion CFA francs ($215 million).
The sector, which previously accounted for almost three percent of GDP, now accounts for just one percent, Malian Tourism Minister Mamou Daffe said on public television in July.
– Local tourists –
Mali has attempted to revive its tourism industry in recent years by focusing on domestic travelers.
The programs have encouraged officials and the public to explore their own country, with subsidized trips to the capital, Bamako, and the regions.
In December, foreign tourists were able to visit Timbuktu for the first time in a decade after extremists made it too dangerous.
They came for the Mali Cultural and Artistic Biennale, which took place in the city.
There were “strict security protocols and all foreigners had to be accompanied by a police escort,” said Ulf Laessing, director of the regional program for the Sahel of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, present at the biennale.
Private airline Sky Mali said it carried almost 1,000 passengers to Timbuktu during the biennium on 12 scheduled flights plus two additional charter flights, just after Western embassies told their citizens to leave Mali amid an extremist fuel blockade.
Meanwhile, according to Keita, director of Mali Tourism, around 100 Russian tourists visited Timbuktu on the occasion of the biennale.
“Hope is being revived,” he said, adding that “this is a new clientele. We hope there will be more, that this will be the relaunch of the tourism industry.”
Mali’s military regime has turned its back on its former colonial power, France, moving closer to Russia, now one of its biggest allies and partner in the energy, defense and higher education sectors.
The authorities recently announced their intention to develop “joint tourism” within the framework of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a confederation that brings together Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, governed by the military junta.