“The atmosphere in Cape Town is incredible – it’s like Covid-19 never occurred,” says local resident Erica Taylor.

And while destinations like Cape Town took a major hit during the Covid-19 pandemic, a buoyant tourist trade is undoing much of the damage in 2023. But local investors are doing much of the legwork today, bringing creativity and sophistication to Africa’s urban centres. In the 1990s, luxury on the African continent typically meant ‘hiding’ in the safety of bland, foreign-owned upmarket hotels. Yet a night out in major cities now offers the same choice as any European metropolis: your options run the whole gamut from boisterous student haunts to designer cocktails served on a rooftop terrace. You want proof? Visit the dynamic urban areas of Lagos, Nigeria, Nairobi, Kenya, and Cape Town, South Africa, where citizens (and tourists) revel in the bonhomie of African nightlife – sometimes a little messy. This beguiling continent remains profoundly uplifting.

The bar scenes in Africa and the Middle East are becoming ones to reckon with, with dynamism and diversity on menus from Lagos to Dubai.ĭynamic, beautiful, diverse – 21st-century Africa is a sight to behold.

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