By Taonga Sabola:
Despite a rebound in international tourists’ traffic into Malawi in the aftermath of Covid, visitor exports remain subdued at $26 million in 2022, latest figures from the Malawi Government have shown.
Visitor export is the spending within a country by international tourists for leisure and business travel.
According to Tourism Minister Vera Kamtukule, international visitor numbers jumped significantly in the aftermath of Covid from 198,905 in 2020 to 736,992 in 2022, representing a 372 percent increase.
In a Ministerial Statement delivered in Parliament on Monday, Kamtukule further said the total contribution of the sector to employment increased from 497,600 in 2020 to 513,200 in 2021.
“However, visitor exports as of 2022 remained low at $26 million compared to the pre-pandemic levels of $ 37 million.
“Additionally, the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) is at 5 percent compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 6.7 percent. Even at this, we know that we can and must do better,” she said.
Kamtukule noted that if the tourism sector is to live up to its hype as a revenue and foreign exchange generator, an aggressive international marketing campaign is key.
“We are all ambassadors to sell Malawi as a destination on the regional and international scene. We need to make noise about Malawi as a destination with its many cultural, wildlife and cultural offerings if we are to open up Malawi as a destination to larger international tourists.
“If a destination is competitive, we need to have an extensive network of wholesalers and retailers who sell Malawi as a package. The current initiatives in the ministry are therefore aimed at blowing up the network of retail and wholesale package operators to include Malawi in their holiday packages,” she said.
According to Kamtukule, Malawi’s participation at international tourism expos including the Internationale Tourismus Börse Germany targeted such operators to ensure that Malawi is included as a destination among their packages.
In addition, she said, familiarisation tours were organised with various operators including Safaris Unmasked, a Kenyan tour operator and owner of Citizen TV and Surma Expeditions, which has an extensive network of over 1,500 Spanish travel agents.
“The main objective of the tour was to create content for them to share with their network to stimulate travel to Malawi.
“Content, aimed at promoting Malawi as a tourism destination, has been developed and shared on various social media platforms as well as with social media influencers visiting little known African countries with the aim of promoting them as potential tourism destinations in the West African and South American markets.
“We expect that this exposure will translate into increased numbers of visitors and investors in the near future,” she said.
President Lazarus Chakwera has identified tourism as one of the key drivers of Malawi’s economic growth in his Agriculture, Tourism and Mining (ATM) Strategy.
Speaking during this year’s Tourism Expo, Chakwera said Malawi has all ingredients of becoming a major tourism destination.
He said the role of selling the country’s tourism sector belongs to everyone.
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