TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN ZAMBIA.

By

Mwenya Kachembele

The author will begin the essay by introduction, were he will define tourism and tourist, then go
in the main body to discuss varies issues concerning tourism development in Zambia. The author
will then bring in suggestions on policy which he think should be implemented by the Zambian
government so as to improve tourism sector in Zambia and then conclude the topic.

INTRODUCTION

Tourism definition: according to United Nation world tourism organization (UNWTO) and
UNSTAT (1994). Defines tourism as “The activity of persons travelling to and staying in places
outside their usual environment for less than a year, for any main purpose (leisure, business or
other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place
visited. This definition pivots around three main dimensions on which tourism has to be defined
and distinguished from other forms of travel. The movement is that where does the tourist travel
and time that is how long the tourist travel and other thing might be the reason or motivation why
the tourist travel to the specific place.

Tourism can also be define as the study of man away from his usual habitant, the industry which
responds to his needs and the impact that both he and the industry have on the social-cultural
economic and physical environments.

The world tourism organization (WTO 1963) of the United Nation Organization concerned with
international tourist define tourist as “a person travels from his native place for reasons other than
employment.

A tourist can also be define as a person that travels for pleasure or A tourist is a person who travels
more than 100 Kilometers from his native place. A tourist can also be define as a person who
travels more than 50 kilometers from his residence.

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 MAIN BODY

Present status: tourism is an important service sector in Zambia. The country is endowed with rich
natural heritage and other tourism attractions such as water falls, lakes, rivers, gorges and wildlife.
The Victoria Falls (Mosi-O-Tunya) is one of the natural wonder of Zambia and the world, it is the
largest tourism site in Zambia. Diverse to different traditional ceremonies are also tourist attraction
in Zambia. Some of the largest and major parks are; Kafue National park. It’s found in the central
province and southern part of Zambia Kafue is one of the biggest parks in Africa covering an area
of about 22,400 square kilometres. It has plenty of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, tress and other
wonderful living things. Some of the rare and exclusive animals found, the blue and yellow dulker,
Lechwe, Roan, Sable, Lichtenstein, Defassa water buck and Oribi found in Miombo woodlands.
In the Kafue River you can find Hippos and Crocodiles, Leopards and Cheetah are also found
rarely. Some of the exclusive luxury Hotels and Lodges found are

 Mukambi Safari lodge

 Bonfune Kafue Camp
 Mu-Flingata Safari lodge
 Mukambi fig tree Bush Camp
 Travelers choices
 Musingwa Safari Lodge

South Luangwa National park. This park is found in the Eastern part of Zambia Luangwa River
Valley. It’s known for its abundant wildlife. It covers an area of 9,050 (square Kilometers). The
Luangwa River is often crowded with hippos. The woodland Savanah is home to hundreds of birds
species herds of elephants and rare thorn crofts giraffes, Leopards (rare) and cape Buffaloes often
several hundred strong. It is one of the best known national parks in Africa for walking safaris.
The park is unfenced and bordered by a steep escarpment and to the east by the Luangwa River.
The south, Luangwa National park lies at the tail end of the Great Africa Rift Valley system. Other
around found in the south Luangwa National park are Zebra’s and Lions. Birds like bee earlier and
Lilac-r Breasted Rorles are also found. South Luangwa has belt accommodations offered some of
the notable are:

 Croc Valley Camp

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  Track and Trail Rivers Camp
 Mushroom Lodgers and presidential House
 Zikomo Safari Camp.

Mosi– O-Tunya National Park it’s found in Livingstone Southern part of Zambia. It’s an UNESCO
World Heritage site that is home to one half of the Mosi–O-Tunya. The smoke which Thunders
known worldwide as Victoria falls on the Zambezi River. The river farms the border between
Zambia and Zimbabwe, so falls are shared by the two countries and park is twin to the Victoria
falls National park on the Zimbabwean side. Mosi-O-Tunya national park covers 66 Kilimotres
squared from Songwa George below the falls in the North West along about 20km of the Zambezi
river bank. The wildlife park includes tall riverine forest with palm trees, Miombo woodland and
grassland with plenty of birds and animals which include Angolan giraffe, Burchells Zebra,
Warthog, Sable, Eland, Cape buffalo, Impala and other Antelope. African elephants are also rarely
seen in this park. Hippocampus and crocodile cam be seen from the river bank. Vervet Monkeys
and Baboons are common as they are in the rest of the national park outside the wildlife section.

Poaching has reduced the number of animals of this park. The park has only five white Rhino, as
of June 2009. (https:ll en.m.wikipedia.org). The park actually has ten white rhino now (currently)
black rhino indigenous.
Accommodation: some of the Hotels close to living and lodges found new Mosi –O-Tunya
National Park are as follows.
 Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia (Anantra) 0.5 Miles away
 The Victoria Fall Hotel – 1mile away
 Avane Victoria Falls Resort – only 0.3 miles away
 Mosi – Oa Tunya National game park Hotel
 Zambezi National park Hotels
 Mukane Park Curio Market Hotels.
 Masamba Cultural Museum Hotels
 Railway Museum Hotels
 Livingstone Museum Hotels
 Devils Pool Hotels
 Victoria Falls Bridge Hotels

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  Protea Hotel
 Ngolide Lodge
 Zambezi way lodge

North Luangwa National park. This is found in the Eastern part of Zambia. It covers an area
of 4636 square kilometers, it offers one of the finest wilderness experiences in Zambia. Access
is with few safari operators granted permission to conduct walking safaris. They are few roads
and you are unlikely to see anyone else for the duration of your trip, like the south park, it lies
on the western bank of the Luangwa river bordered on the other side by the dramatic Muchinga
escapement. The vegetation from Mopani woodlands to riverine forest, open grassland and
acacia thicket. Trees include the beautiful sausages tree, vegetable ivory palms, red.

Accommodation: to stay in the North Lungwa National park you need to pre book via one of
the operators. There are no fixed lodges open to the public. Other most popular parks visited
by a lot of tourist in Zambia are as follows

 Kansanka National park

 Lonchvar National park
 Lower Zambezi National park
 Liuwa Plane National park
 Nsambu National park
 Sioma Ngwezi National park

Some other parks which are visited by tourist are;

 Blue lagoon National park

 Lavushi Manda National Park
 Luambe National park
 Lukusuzi National park
 Lusaka National park
 Lusenga plains National Park
 Mweru Watipa National park
 Nyika National park

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  West Lunga National park

Luambe and Lukasuzi Lukusazi Liuwa plain, west Lunga Sioma Ngwezi and Nyika Plateau have
substantial wildlife but are still undeveloped, Mosi – O – Tunya, near Victoria falls is regarded as
a zoological park it does not have predators. Isangano, Lavushi, Manda, Lusenga plain and Mweru
Watipa have never had management or facilitates and have little world life but are still worth a
visit by intrepid explorers and birds lovers. Lusaka National park is a new park, which is outside
the capital, it was opened to the public in June 2015. A number of tourist have been visiting this
park because it’s near the capital city where there good roads and proper accommodation. There
are 19 National parks in Zambia and 34 game management areas covering over 22.4 million
hectares in Zambia.

Although much of tourism in Zambia is concentrated in a limited number of National parks, such
as the South Lungwa, Kafue, Lower Zmbezi, Mosi – O – Tunya and Kasanka, the rest of the parks
provide considerable potential for failure tourism development. In addition to National parks, a
number of areas in Zambia have been declared National heritage sites or monuments. These areas
include 145 geological sites and 70 geomorphological heritage sites.

The Kundalila fall and the source of the Zambazi have been listed as ecological site which are
available as tourism attraction Zambia. Zambia has 73 tribes with diverse cultural tradition which
include a variety of annual traditional ceremonies which are an attraction to tourism. Some of the
traditional ceremonies which attract a lot of tourist are as follows

 Kuomboka ceremony
 Nchawala Traditional ceremony

There was a major and notable enhancement recorded during the period of 2006 – 2010 where
these was a significant increase in tourist number along with greater investment from the private
sector.

According to the seven National development plain (2017: 27)

“Over the previous decade the country’s total annual international tourist arrivals increased from
668, 862 in 2005 to 931,782 in 2015, representing a 39 percent increment. Tourism average gross
domestic product (GDP) contribution over the 5 years period from 2010 to 214 was around 1.76

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per annum. With regard to accommodation establishments, the sector recorded an increase of 25.6
percent from 933 in 2012 to 1,172 in 2015 with a corresponding 45.6 percent increase in bed spaces
from 51,662 in 2012 to 75,253 in 2015. The increase was attributed to high demand for tourism
enterprise business, mostly by local citizen. The room occupancy rate improved from 54.9 percent
in 2012 to 68.9 percent in 2015 due to increase tourist arrivals.”

Six National Development Plan 2011-2015

Key performance indicators.

Key performance indicators Baseline ANNUAL TARGETS

2009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Tourist arrival international 709,948 810,000 920,800 1,030,800 1,140,00 1,250,00
Tourist arrival 200 216 260 22 374 449
international(US $m)
Employment levels 27,412 29,000 31,000 36,000 41,000 45,000
Bed space in the hospitality 19,000 20,140 22,150 23,370 24,800 25,500
industry
Occupancy rates % 60 62 65 68 71 75
Length of stay for tourist 7 7 10 10 14 14
(Days)
Number of arts and cultural 500 500 750 1000 1250 1500
practitioners accessing Arts
and Culture Infrastructures

Time of Zambia 19 April 2018 (P.9). In 2016 Mosi-oa-Tunga National park recorded 20,278
visitors of which 7,728 where international and 12550 were local tourists. In terms of revenue the
victors translated into K3.6 million for that year. Whereas the amount almost doubled to
K6.5million in 2017. In 2017 the park had 10,334 visitors and 11,615 local tourist. The Mosi-oa-
Tunya Park unique because of its 12white Rhinos

Problems in development of tourism products in Zambia/restrictions

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 In Zambia tourist infrastructure is largely under development, mainly Railway, airports,
telecommunications and accommodation facilities. Nearly in all National parks roads are very bad
especially in the rain season, which prevents access to tourist area, during rainy season. There is
limited products base such that mostly in Zambia tourism products continue to be wild life based
and undeveloped. These inadequate marketing of Zambia as a tourist destination by the
government and the private tour operators on international media example on cable network news
(CNN), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Aljazeera etc. Lack of heavy investment in
tourism products like roads, railways, accommodation, transport, National heritage sites etc. Due
to lack of capital by the tour operators. Access to funds from financial markets locally is very
difficult, so that people can invest in tourism products.

Poaching is one of the constraint to development of tourism products in Zambia. Lack of the
capacity to protect wildlife from poachers by the government and private tour operates. The other
problem Zambia faces increased competition from its regional neighbors. South Africa is the
largest market in the SADC region, accounting for 44 percent of visitors arrivals. Botswana,
Tanzania and Namibia are the other major competition of the southern Africa Development
community, with Kenya an important competitor in the wide region.

Recent economic and political difficulties have to some extent supplied competition from
Zimbabwe, the country that share Victoria Falls with Zambia. However, Zimbabwe could easily
result formidable competitor. Zimbabwe’s tourism products which are similar in nature but
developed are competitively priced in addition, Zimbabwe benefits from a strong skill and
effective infrastructure.

Budget allocation for tourist sector during the six national development plan.

Program 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Tourism marketing and promotion 11,3 (26.96) 21.5(49.85) 25.6(52.10) 25.5(17.3) 25.5(48.90)
Tourism product development of
research 0.2(0.48) 1.0(2.35) 1.5(3.76) 1.5(2.93) 1.5(2.78)
Product quality 1.5(3.58) 1.2(2.78) 1.0(0.2) 1.0(1.95) 1.0(1.85)
Tourism infrastructure development 22.0(52.51) 9.4(21.7) 11.0(22.1) 11.0(21.02) 11.0(20.41)
Tourism skills development - 0.5(1.15) 0.6(1.20) 0.8(1.56) 0.9(1.69)

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Arts and culture infrastructure 5.0(15.7) 6.8(15.7) 7.2(14.43) 7.8(15.26) 9.0(16.7
Creative industries 1.9(4.54) 2.8(6.47) 3.1(6.21) 3.5(6.85) 5.0(9.27)
Total 41.9 (100) 43.3 (100) 49.9 (100) 51.1 (100) 53.9 (100)
Source. Six National development plan SNDP (2011- 150 sustained Economic growth of poverty
reduction, January 2011 P 148.

Note: Figure in the parentheses are percentages.

Tourism promotion and marketing

According to the seventh National development plan 7 NDP 2017 – 2021 (P 7 Volume II) it says
“During the 7th National development period focus will be on tapping into the unexploited of
domestic tourist as a way of contributing to the overall diversification of the tourism sector and
the economy. The government through the Zambia Tourism Agency will identify and partner with
operates within the hospitality industry willing to use a two ties system in the pricing of
accommodation facilities, during off-peak tourism seasons, to allow local citizens pay lower rate.
In addition, a robust campaign will be conducted to bring about mindset change in organizations
and citizens such that tourism is not perceived as a mere luxury bust as a form of relaxation that
increase productivity. This will help boost not only domestic tourism but also enhance the
resilience of tourism and hospitality industry.

Problems and restriction to tourism development in Zambia

In Zambia there are lot of restrictions and problems faced by tourism sector which has led to slow
growth of tourism development. There a lot of regulations which make it difficult for people or
investors to invest in tourism for people in Zambia. Too many licenses required for you to be a
tour operator or to enter into tourism business. There’s a lot of political interference in the running
of tourism in Zambia, policies are not stable to enable investors plan. There are a lot of revocation
of licenses at any time by the government without notice. It’s very difficult to obtain these licenses.
There a lot of bureaucracy, coupled with corruption for you to obtain these licenses. Foreign tourist
also face a lot of problems to obtain permits to come to Zambia. Under-development of
infrastructure is one of the problems faced to development of tourism in Zambia. There also
inadequate of marketing. In this industry there shortage of well-trained human resource and

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Zambia is a high cost destination. There also less security to tourist entering Zambia that make it
a risk to come to Zambia and tour natural sites and wild life.

Many tourism establishment prefer to go to Indaba in Durban where they compete with other
Southern African countries for the business instead of them having something organized locally
like the ZAMBIA INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL EXPO.

What is needed to develop tourism in Zambia/recommendations’

There is need to relax migration permits for people coming as tourist in Zambia from outside the
country. The government of Zambia need to put up a deliberate programme through the ministry
of tourism to put up a training programmes for tourism staff. Ministry of tourism should engage
higher learning institutions to put up training programmes in tourism. There need to flood the
tourism industry with trained skilled manpower to handle tourism. The government of Zambia
need to increase budgetary allocation to Ministry of tourism, so the ministry can improve
infrastructure in this industry. Roads needed to be improved so that they are accessible in all
seasons of the years in the game parks and those roads leading to game parks. There need for the
government of Zambia through the ministry of tourism to increase animal protection from poaches.
This will increase the number wildlife, especially species like Rhinos. There’s also need for the
government to encourage local tourism by Zambia residents, special rates or discounts to local
residents should be introduced so that the local Zambia citizens can have access and privilege to
go for tourism, this will increase revenue in the industrial hence create employment opportunities
for Zambia citizen. The other suggestion is in line with the tourism in the Firth National
Development Plan (2006-10), “the general policy of the government during National Development
Plan (FNDP 2009: P54) was for the private sector to drive tourism development within the overall
public sector tourism policy frame work. In this respect the role of the government should be as
follows.

a. Facilitate of tourism development

b. Formulation and implementation of tourism related policies
c. Enactment of registration to consolidate legislative development
d. Elimination of conflict or overlaps within and outside the sector.

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 e. To introduce of appropriate administrative structures necessary for implementation of the
policies”.

The major public sector institution that should continual operating in the tourism sector are the
ministry of tourism, environment and natural resources, the Zambia tourism Board, as restructured,
the Zambia wild life authority, the national heritage conservation commission and the hotel and
tourism training trust. Its important and interesting that the Zambia ministry of tourism and arts
and the Zambia tourism board should advertise on international media like the CNN (Cable
Network News) and the BBC (British Broadcasting Co-operation). The tourism industry in Zambia
shall co-operate and work together and puts all heads on the deck to advertise the tourism sector
in Zambia an international forum like on Zambia International Travel Expo. Zambia in tourism
sector should improve the interest in selling Zambia first and individual products as the next step

As I conclude this case, I would say Zambian tourism products outside Livingstone can bemoan
the fact the focus for advertising is weighed towards Livingstone. Today tourism products
competition and travelers from Europe and America to Africa will choose South Africa and extend
to Livingstone or Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The objective is to get longer stays in Zambia. That
means Zambia tourism industry will have to have wholesale buyers experience the product. Many
of the establishment communication over the years with regular suppliers. There’s need for Zambia
government through the ministry of tourism to put efforts to build a frame work for sustainable
tourism in Zambia. It should identify policies and institutional approaches for Zambia to make its
industry more competitive and attractive to investors. The Zambia government should participate
in the UNWTO’S programmes that have a bearing on the tourism interest of the country and its
tourism policy in order to improve tourism status in Zambia.

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