African countries can really star on the Big Screen

The fact that Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya's Nakuru County played host to the movies The Lion King and Tomb Raider 2 has made the park famous worldwide. According to Charles Nkaiseri, a tour guide at the park, many of the visitors to the park request to be taken to Pride Rock, the place that inspired the scenery in The Lion King, or to the Ol Jorowa Gorge where most of the tomb scenes were filmed in the Tomb Raider movie.

Elsa Lunani, who is the digital products manager at Multichoice Kenya, a satellite television service, said that since independence, film tourism has proved to be a powerful tool for attracting visitors to various destinations across the continent.

"In Kenya for instance, award-winning international films like The Constant Gardener, To Walk with Lions, Married Bachelor, Out of Africa, Mountains of the Moon, Nowhere in Africa, and The Big Cat Diary shot in the country are among a long list of key success stories," Lunani said.