Zambia’s tourism sector to rebound

BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes ZAMBIA can maintain its market share and competitive advantage for the tourism industry by paying attention to the sector’s long-term development potential. This is according to Ministry of National Development Planning, Permanent Secretary in charge of Development Planning and Administration, Chola Chabala. Mr Chabala said this would start by taking stock of what the country had […]

Zambia’s tourism sector to rebound
BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes ZAMBIA can maintain its market share and competitive advantage for the tourism industry by paying attention to the sector’s long-term development potential. This is according to Ministry of National Development Planning, Permanent Secretary in charge of Development Planning and Administration, Chola Chabala. Mr Chabala said this would start by taking stock of what the country had from wildlife, fauna to heritage sites and how these interacted with other sectors in the economy and the natural environment. Mr Chabala stressed that the global economy had been adversely affected by Covid-19 outbreak which had had negative impacted on the tourism sector. He said this when he officiated at a workshop co-organised with the WWF Zambia on development of natural capital accounts for Zambia WAVES Accounts on tourism, forest, water and land in Lusaka. “The ecosystem accounts concept will help Zambia, a biodiversity-rich country, to design a management strategy that balances trade-offs among what is obtained from the environment and what remains on the environment to ensure sustainability,” he said. Mr Chabala expressed optimism that the final report of the Tourism Account will improve the management of tourism resources in the country to achieve the aspirations of the Vision 2030 and attainment of SDGs.  WWF Zambia Country Director, Nachilala Nkombo assured of her organisation’s continued close collaboration with Government in the protection of the environment, tourism and other sectors for the benefit of the people. Ms Nkombo said Natural Capital Accounting would reveal the full economic value of natural resources in Zambia, enhance economy-wide and landscape level decisions making by providing rich information on natural capital stocks and ecosystem.   “We appeal to Government to fully utilise the natural capital accounting outputs to guide policy and investments decision to attain our SDGs ambitions while conserving our natural resources that our people and the economy depend on,” she said. The Sun