Lack of national airline makes tourism expensive – report

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 09:44:36 +0000

BY MAILESI BANDA

THE tourism sector is one of the major sources of Government revenue in form of taxes, duties, license fees and game park entry fees.

This is according to the recently launched National Tourism Policy which notes that the tourism sector’s vision was to make Zambia a major tourism destination of choice with unique features which could contribute to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction by 2030.

And in a bid to implement the vision, several programs have been implemented to develop and promote various tourism products.

The report notes that there are a number of challenges that the sector is facing in order to attain economic growth and increase its contribution to the growth of the economy.

Among the challenges cited include inadequate physical infrastructure particularly roads, bridges, buildings and other important structures that are great contributors to the growth of the tourism sector.

Another hindrance to the growth of the tourism sector was the non-availability of air transport connectivity since Zambia operated an open sky policy which allowed other countries to fly over Zambia.

It has  however been noted that air transport to and from the source of tourism markets had remained expensive due to various factors including lack of the national airline and dependence on other airlines for connectivity to and from other countries.

Product base was cited to be another challenge for the sector growth, revealing that Zambia’s tourism industry was narrow with its main focus over the years being on nature-based tourism, adding that the packaging of tourism products and attractions had not been well established, resulting in shorter days of stay of three days in most tourism destinations by tourists.

The report reveals that the lack of development in the local tourism sector has rendered the industry vulnerable to external shocks, adding that it was characterized by marginalization of the locals, especially at community level which was not effectively engaging themselves in gainful tourism enterprises and that this had resulted in limited spread of tourism earnings.

Author

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button