Finally! Finally!! Finally!!!…..we clicked on send, submit, done, BAM! It is gone now and we can catch some respite. I am excited to say that with my wonderful co-editors – Marina Novelli and Manuel Ribiero – we have finally submitted the entire manuscript for the Routledge Handbook of Tourism in Africa to the publishers.

The Routledge Handbook of Tourism in Africa is focused on a dialogue between academics and industry practitioners. We will have 30 standard chapters by primarily African academics and 10 InFocus shorter chapters written by industry practitioners across the continent with a Foreword written by the current Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. We are looking forwarding to seeing the final book.

It has been a long journey that started from late summer 2017 when we developed the book proposal and signed the book contract in November, 2017. Between November, 2017 and February 2020, there have been many ups and downs on this journey of putting together this volume. This is only the ending and the beginning of a new phase – production queries, proofs to be corrected, etc – that is still to come. However, it is great to have finally arrived at this point and it is right that we can pause to celebrate this milestone as the manuscript gets on the production line.