Benin Cross Border Tourism and Competitiveness Project

closed

The objective of the Cross-Border Tourism and Competitiveness Project for Benin is to contribute to increased cross-border tourism and private sector investment in selected tourism destinations and value chains, in the recipient’s territory. There are four components to the project, the first component being improving the recipient’s tourism development framework. This component aims at improving the investment climate to foster development of the tourism sector in Benin. The second component is the tourism destination and product development. The objective of this component is to support the critical elements of tourism products, destinations, and services in selected tourism destinations to break the vicious cycle of perpetuating underperformance of the tourism sector in Benin. The component will target the destination of Ouidah as the strategic starting point of a sequenced development approach. Ouidah is strategically located on the coast, with favorable transport access and linkages to potential demand (proximity to Cotonou, Nigeria, and Togo) in Benin’s priority area for tourism development. The third component is the support to MSME upgrading, linkages, and expansion. This component will support tourism or tourism related MSMEs in selected tourism destinations to improve quality and linkages and foster growth of tourism related MSMEs by extending access to credit. Finally, the fourth component is the project management.