May 13th 2021, 8:24 Region has learned lessons of previous pandemics, says African Travel and Tourism (ATTA) president Nigel Vere Nicoll Ironically, it appears that the elephant in the room in global tourism will once again be Africa. Remember 2014, when the Ebola epidemic in West Africa shut down tourism throughout the continent despite the outbreak being further away from most of Africa’s safari destinations than the UK? So, its Groundhog Day as the ‘darkest Africa’ cloud gathers and the UK’s dreaded red brush remains firmly over most of the key African tourism destinations, preventing all international travel. A touch of red, and tourism’s dead.