Little by little, step by step, an idea is starting to spread across Africa that could galvanize travel and tourism on the Mother Continent.

Think of it as a kind of pan-African super visa.

Today, the five nations that comprise the East African Community — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda — made it known that they are looking to create a single visa that would allow foreign travelers to visit any or all five countries. You can read about it here.

Earlier this year at the annual congress of the Africa Travel Association in The Gambia, ATA members and African government officials began floating the idea of a diaspora visa, aimed at getting African-Americans to visit and African emigres to return home to invest.

Ghana already offers just such a visa.

The EAC proposal goes further, extending a common visa to any foreign visitor.

The 13 West African nations that comprise ECOWAS already offer a common visa that allows the free movement of any citizen from an ECOWAS-member nation.

You can see where all this is gradually headed — a single tourist visa allowing foreign visitors to enter any African country — or all of them — on a single immigration control.

Why does this matter to African tourism — and potentially to you if you’re thinking of going there someday?

There are 53 countries on the continent. To visit most of them, you have to obtain — and pay for — a visa for each country. In most cases, you can’t get it in advance. You have to obtain it — and pay for it — on your arrival.

Imagine that you decide to take a recreational vehicle on a summer-long trek around the 48 continental United States. Imagine that at the first state line you encounter, you have to stop, get out, go into a government office and pay upwards of $100 before you can enter that state. Now imagine having to repeat that process 47 times.

Still want to take that trip?

Here’s another example. You live in, say, Delaware, and you just spotted what looks like a great Hawaiian cruise package. The flight that takes you to the cruise ship waiting in Long Beach, CA leaves from Newark, NJ. So you pay both New Jersey and California to enter those states.

And when you dock in Honolulu, you’ll be paying Hawaii, as well.

Madness, isn’t it? But that’s the reality of travel and tourism in Africa today. And that’s exactly what streamlining the region’s immigration controls would do away with.

Western Europe did away with theirs when they formed the European Union in 1993, and the idea has been gradually spreading across the globe ever since, regionally, here and there.

Comes now 2010, and the nations of Africa are starting to realize the wisdom — and potential benefits — of doing the same thing.

Getting the entire continent on board with this idea won’t be easy. Making it work will require some things not always found in abundance among the 53 African nations — internal stability, mutual trust and a vision that encompasses the entire region. But there are signs that the Mother Continent is moving in that direction — and the EAC proposal is one of them.

Little by little, step by step.

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