By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
ZAMBIA should develop a strong political will towards building a sustainable hospitality industry and also fully utilize tourism potential in order to revamp local economy.
There is a strong need for Government, businesses and various economic players to utilise full potential involved in the tourism industry, social economist Kelvin Chisanga said in Lusaka yesterday.
Mr Chisanga said Zambia could survive without the help of the mining sector if only policies and models of implementation in both tourism and agriculture were correctly applied. He said this required implementing policies and decisive actions for the good of the Zambian economy.
Mr Chisanga said tourism and agriculture offered a quick opportunity, strong fundamental base for Zambia’s economic recovery.
He noted that tourism and agriculture were key economic sectors, which could help resuscitate Zambia’s fundamental performances.
“If we see the actual normalisation of life come-back especially from the shackles of COVID-19, Zambia as a nation should go in high gear with tourism and agriculture.
“Tourism has placed a huge centrepiece in growing country’s economic aspirations,” Mr Chisanga said.
He said the tourism sector if carefully enhanced could bring about some substantial quantum of resourceful funds into Zambia’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“We can attest from our two comparative African nations in the region thus Kenya and Rwanda who are busy drawing huge chunks of money at micro levels, and are strongly driven by these two sectors of the economy such as tourism and agriculture domains,” Mr Chisanga observed.
