Tourism minister Ronald Chitotela has stated that the situation analysis for the development of the tourism master plan has revealed that Zambia is branded as a high cost tourist destination, partly due to the excessive use of imported materials in the tourism industry for such facilities as accommodation and furnishings.
Chitotela said to deal with the perception of the high cost of tourism in Zambia, government is willing to empower local businesses to invest in furniture making businesses to cushion the high costs of importing furnishings for the tourism sector.
‘‘Let me be quick to mention that as government, we want to invite capable Zambians to work with us in addressing the challenges through building our local capacity. Imagine if today, we can find a local Zambian company and give them an order, those that are specialised with serving the Hotel and Lodge industries to manufacture high quality beds for us, obviously the cost of doing business in the tourism industry will reduce and more jobs will be created locally’’, said Chitotela.
He further stated that his government is not only challenging local businesses, but is also making sure that it provides the needed support. Chitotela said that even the minister of Finance has expressed desire to come up with incentives that can be extended to the tourism sector for the local content contribution for the tourism industry to grow.
‘‘Let me refer to the speech, delivered by President Edgar Lungu during the official opening of the fourth session of the twelfth national assembly, Zambia’s tourism industry has been labelled as high cost due to the heavy use of imported materials even were local materials can be used, resulting in high cost of accommodation, hindering the industry from scoring the highest optimum of business potential of attracting local tourists.
Further, the tourism Minister pointed out that community participation is key towards wildlife conservation saying, when local people are involved they provide defense and security thereby reducing the cost of investing in defense and security because the community themselves provide the defense.
He further emphasized that for Zambia to be branded as a sustainable tourism destination, local participation and local tourism should be number one. The Tourism Minister was speaking when he officiated at a consultative breakfast meeting between the Ministry of Tourism and its stakeholders including the Tourism Council of Zambia, the Zambia Tourism Agency, Ministry of Finance, National Airports Corporation, Civil Aviation Authority and Zambia Police, held in Lusaka on 30 October 2019, attended by the Zambian Business Times.
