The country\u2019s first ever tourism indaba is set to take place in September this year, the Department of Tourism has confirmed.<\/p>\n
The indaba, which aims to open Malawi to foreign investors, will take place alongside the country\u2019s tourism month activities.<\/p>\n
The tourism month is an annual celebration held in September to focus on the importance of tourism to the economy of Malawi.<\/p>\n
Chief Director in the ministry of Trade and Tourism, Elsie Tembo, said preparations for the indaba have already started.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organising committee has already met three times and the event is likely to take place in September alongside the tourism month celebrations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tembo, said the event is very important as it will not only attract tourists into the country, but it will also offer an opening to potential investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cTourism and trade go together, so the indaba is not only targeted to increase tourists\u2019 traffic but to woo investors in various sectors including the tourism and hospitality industry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s tourism sector however, contributes about three percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).<\/p>\n
Minister of Trade and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha said government expects the contribution of the tourism sector to the GDP to increase from eight to 13 percent by the year 2018.<\/p>\n
Mwanamvekha said the government has put in place strategies to achieve the targeted growth and one of which is the indaba.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plans to increase representation in key source markets such as China, Germany, United Kingdom and South Africa. Promotion of Malawi as a leading destination for conferences and events will also continue as a result of the modern conference and events facilities available in Lilongwe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Malawi tourism sector has failed to grow over the years due to challenges that include lack of financial resources to support the proper management of tourism establishments such as protected areas and lack of infrastructure structure such as access roads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The country\u2019s first ever tourism indaba is set to take place in September this year, the Department of Tourism has confirmed. The indaba, which aims to open Malawi to foreign investors, will take place alongside the country\u2019s tourism month activities. The tourism month is an annual celebration held in September to focus on the importance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28251,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230\/revisions\/28251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}