We model the nexus between tourism and economic growth in Africa using annual data that runs from 1995-2016 for 48 African countries. We approach the study in two waysall the selected African countries and each of the five regions of the continent distinctly. Symmetric panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Granger non-causality test were utilized for the study. Our empirical evidence affirms that tourism is indispensable for growth in Africa, Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western Africa in the long run. In the short run, tourism contributes insignificantly to growth in Central, Northern, Southern and Western Africa but insignificantly reduces growth in Africa and Eastern Africa. We observe an evidence of bidirectional causality between tourism and economic growth in Africa, Central, Eastern and Northern Africa, a unidirectional causality from growth to tourism in West Africa and from tourism to growth in Northern Africa. We therefore conclude that tourism drives economic growth in Africa.