After Zambia investing over $1 billion dollars in the past decade in upgrading its Airport infrastructure and relaunching it’s national airline, the next natural step is to start attracting more tourists and airlines into the country. One such initiative was to waive visa requirement from source countries.
Despite Government issuing visa waivers to now confirmed 43 mostly European Union – EU countries, arrivals from these very countries which were selected on the basis of being tourist source nations in the first month of implementation has dropped compared to the recent past two months.
According to the information made available to the Zambian Business Times – ZBT in an exclusive engagement with Immigration Department, the waivers for 43 countries which came in effect on the 1st November 2022 seems to have not been properly marketed by the Zambia Tourism Agency – ZTA.
When compared this month and to that of the last month in October 2022, arrivals into Zambia have reduced by about 20% to 12,213 from 15, 156 representing about 3,000 tourist reduction in the number of arrivals.
Responding to the ZBT query, Immigration Department Public Relations Officer Namanti Nshinka said the first month of November recorded 12,213 arrivals when compared to 15,156 recorded in the previous month of October before waivers came into effect.
The arrivals recorded in November is also below 14, 9991 which was recorded in September 2022. Nshinka however explained that this is because this period is an off season for tourist arrivals. He also mentioned that the statistics were from the 21 ports of entry connected to the Zambia Immigration Management System (ZIMS).
Government has waived visa requirements for 43 countries deemed to be a key source market for tourists. In an effort to jump start and exponentially grow its tourist arrivals, government proceeded to issue the waivers despite some of the listed countries not reciprocating the gesture.
No African country was however included on this list leading to questions being asked on matters of the veracity of the strategy and with some accusing the policy proponents of having a colonial mindset and totally ignoring the need to grow inter – African tourism.
