Former Tourism Minister Jean Kapata has warned that Zambia’s target of attracting five million international tourist arrivals by 2031 may not be attainable under the current state of the tourism sector.
Kapata, who served as Minister of Tourism from 2014 to 2016, said Zambia has numerous tourist attractions but many remain difficult to access because of inadequate roads and limited accommodation facilities.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Zambian Business Times-ZBT Kapata said the country has not done enough to expand its tourism attractions.
“It’s not attainable in the sense that I think we have not put an improvement or increase tourism attraction centres,” she said.
“We have a few, the traditional one, the big falls, and the rest of the areas are unreachable. You don’t have, there’s no access to those tourist attractive areas in Zambia.” Kapata said some of the country’s waterfalls, particularly in Northern Province, could contribute to tourism growth if government improved access and accommodation around such attractions.
“We have a lot of dotted small falls which I think with infrastructure, say for example, hotels and access roads, would improve, maybe then you can say we can reach that figure,” she said. “But with that, the current way, I don’t think it’s true and it’s attainable.”
She said Zambia should look beyond the traditional tourist attractions and identify what each district can offer visitors. “First of all, every district in Zambia has something to talk about itself. History of that district. What is it that they have that can attract tourists?” Kapata said.
According to Kapata, tourism development should also focus on Zambia’s culture, with districts encouraged to organise cultural activities that can attract visitors while preserving local traditions. She suggested that districts could organise regular cultural events, including singing and traditional dance festivals.
“Let the cultural dances, let people come up with cultural dances where people, even local tourists ourselves, say for example on a Saturday there will be a district to come up with a singing festival or a dance festival,” she said.
Kapata said such initiatives could also help younger generations understand and preserve their cultural heritage.
She further stressed the importance of domestic tourism, arguing that Zambians themselves need to participate more actively in tourism before the country can expect to attract millions of international visitors.
“But also even us Zambians, for us to reach that, even us Zambians must be involved in the tourism itself,” she said.
Kapata said it was concerning that some Zambians had never visited major tourist attractions despite living in the country.
“You won’t believe that there are people who live here in Zambia, even in Livingstone itself, who’ve never gone to see the big falls,” she said.
“That’s where it starts for us to attain that number.” Kapata said improving access roads, accommodation and tourism products across the country would be critical if Zambia is to meet its target of 5 million international arrivals by the year 2031.
Article by Karen Ngulube
