At the 69th Meeting of the UN Tourism Regional Commission for Africa (CAF), held at the Kempinski Seychelles Resort in Mahe, Seychelles, one of the most compelling interventions came not from a policy podium but from an unfiltered fireside conversation with Hamza Farooqui, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of South Africa based Millat Group.
In a session aptly titled Inside the Investor’s Brain, Farooqui challenged African tourism leaders to confront a hard truth: the continent’s tourism promise will remain unrealised unless governments abandon entitlement-driven thinking and create environments where private capital can thrive through meritocracy, policy certainty and regional cooperation.
Speaking with Linh Vu, Special Adviser to the UN Tourism Secretary-General, Farooqui offered a rare, ground-level investor perspective on what it truly takes to build globally competitive tourism assets in Africa – without leaning on state guarantees or development finance cushions.
Moving beyond State dependence
Opening the conversation at the Kempinski Seychelles Resort, Farooqui laid bare the financing reality behind his group’s luxury hospitality portfolio. Millat Group’s projects, he explained, have been funded entirely through equity and conventional commercial debt, deliberately bypassing government-backed Development Finance Institutions (DFIs).
“We don’t have a government DFI lending to our business,” Farooqui said. “And that’s an important message. No one is coming to change the fortune of Africa. African entrepreneurs need to emerge. And tourism Ministers need to understand that you must pick winners, not losers.”
He warned that heavy reliance on state-led capital often undermines both discipline and delivery in tourism development. “When sponsors say, ‘Government will fund it’, that formula breeds entitlement,” he argued. “Entitlement breeds complacency. And where there is complacency, there is no meritocracy.”
Luxury, Data and the African Proof Point
Pressed by Vu for performance data, particularly from Millat Group’s experience operating under the demanding standards of the Park Hyatt brand, Farooqui offered hard metrics rather than marketing rhetoric.
He explained that while a Revenue Generation Index (RGI) of 100 indicates market parity – and 110 reflects strong outperformance – one of his flagship properties exceeded benchmarks so dramatically that it raised red flags at global headquarters.
“At one point, the data coming into Chicago showed an RGI of over 1,200 per cent,” he recalled. “They had to ask, ‘What is this?’”
The hotel, he noted, consistently achieved premium seasonal rates between US$500 and US$700 per night, competing directly with – and outperforming – established luxury brands such as Four Seasons.
“This validates the thesis of right-sizing,” Farooqui said. “Luxury is a viable segment in Africa. If you get the product right, capitalised correctly and underwritten properly, the market responds. But you must choose right.”
Re-centering Tourism in National Economies
Farooqui’s most pointed critique was reserved for how tourism ministries are positioned within government. “One of my biggest pain points is that tourism ministries are treated as peripheral,” he said. “They should sit at the heart of the economic cluster.”
He urged Ministers to assert their convening power with heads of state and central economic agencies, arguing that tourism’s cross-cutting impact on jobs, infrastructure, skills and foreign exchange places it firmly at the centre of development planning.
Rather than chasing fragmented initiatives, he advised ministries to focus on a tight investor checklist: credible sponsors, structured capital and absolute policy certainty.
“Find three or four things you can truly manage,” he said. “Once you build confidence around those, capital will follow.”
The case for Pan-African Corridors
Looking beyond South Africa, Farooqui emphasised that Africa’s greatest tourism opportunity lies in cross-border collaboration, not national isolation. “Africa is the strategy,” he said. “South Africa is just where we started.”
He noted that long-haul travellers rarely visit a single destination, pointing to how guests at Park Hyatt properties often use South Africa as a gateway to Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls and neighbouring countries. “If Ministers stay in silos – ‘me and mine’ – we will fail our people,” he warned.
Vu observed that with 17 Ministers and 27 Member States present in Seychelles, the CAF platform offered a rare chance to dismantle these silos and translate attendance into tangible regional outcomes.
Selling Africa to Global Capital
The session ended with a light but telling challenge: how would Farooqui pitch Africa to BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink in a 90-second elevator ride?
His answer was characteristically blunt.
“If you want real growth, real people and real opportunity, Africa is where the story is,” he said. “If global capital continues to reduce Africa to sovereign bonds and opportunistic plays, it is doing itself – and the world – a disservice.”
Closing the dialogue, Farooqui drew a parallel between governance and hospitality.
“Politics, like tourism, is a service business,” he concluded. “If we commit to unconditional service, we can transform this sector – and this continent.”
