{"id":414,"date":"2014-06-04T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=414"},"modified":"2016-10-28T15:02:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T14:02:50","slug":"intra-africa-business-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/06\/04\/intra-africa-business-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"Intra-Africa business travel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20140603_210327\"<\/a>
Arriving to Accra airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a part of my learning trip<\/a>, I arrived yesterday to Accra<\/a>, Ghana <\/a>where I will be for one week. Travelling from Nairobi to Accra would have been as easy as travelling from Barcelona<\/strong> (where I was last week). But that’s not the case for most of intra-Africa business travel.<\/strong> There are very few flight connections<\/strong> — an important hindrance for companies to operate on a Pan-African basis.<\/p>\n

One of the African business leaders I’ve interviewed shared some of his travel stories<\/strong> with me: in his first trip from Nigeria to Gambia<\/strong>, the initial itinerary was to fly from Lagos to Dakar, Senegal, stay there over night, and on the next day fly with a different airline to Banjul, Gambia.<\/strong> Early morning, he was notified that this second flight had been cancelled.<\/strong> As he had an important meeting that morning, on the road he was. Supposedly, it was going to take 4 hours: 8 hours later he was still on the road.<\/strong> But upon arrival, the trip hadn’t finished yet: the next hurdle was to take a ferry<\/strong> — one that offered transport not only to people but also to cows and the like. By the time he arrived, the meeting had dissolved.<\/p>\n

But he’s a perseverant man. On his second trip to Gambia<\/strong>, the plane had a bird strike. As the bird had got into the engine, they had to land in Sierra Leone.<\/strong> But there are no flights from Sierra Leone to Gambia thus they could not be re-routed. Instead, they had to wait about 60 hours for another plane<\/strong> to come from Lagos and pick them up.<\/p>\n

His own reflections: “How many of such places can you go to in Africa?<\/strong> We want to grow but these are some of the challenges. But that is why it’s good because Westerners will never do it.<\/strong>” — Do you agree with him?<\/p>\n

My host in Accra is CEIBS Africa<\/a>, the campus that IESE’s <\/a>associated school CEIBS <\/a>from Shanghai has in Ghana. My main purpose is to interview managers of some Pan-African companies. I’ll have some additional interviews to help me get acquainted with Ghana country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a part of my learning trip, I arrived yesterday to Accra, Ghana where I will be for one week. Travelling from Nairobi to Accra would have been as easy as travelling from Barcelona (where I was last week). But that’s not the case for most of intra-Africa business travel. There are very few flight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99579,492,77626],"tags":[18386,80762,67318,80751,80748,1080,19445,12568],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-economic-and-institutional-context","category-development","category-entrepreneurship-in-africa","tag-business-travel","tag-gambia","tag-ghana","tag-internacionalization","tag-life-style","tag-nigeria","tag-transportation","tag-travel","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t