Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha has said there are plans to start marketing the country\u2019s various tourism products and opportunities globally as a way of increasing the sector\u2019s capacity to contribute tremendously to the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
He said Malawi has minerals and resources that can attract tourists and foreign investors, hence the need to sell the country globally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you travel to other countries people don\u2019t know what Malawi is. We have very beautiful tourism products, mountains, game reserves and hotels. We want to sell the country on DSTv and the procurement process has been done. We would like the country to have a brand,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Mwanamvekha, however, has warned some tourism operators who are promoting \u2018tourism receipt leakages\u2019, saying the development is robbing the country of foreign exchange earnings.<\/p>\n
\u201cPayment is made in foreign accounts, the tourists just come to Malawi to enjoy holidays without paying anything. Money is being left in other countries. We are losing out on our foreign earnings,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
He was speaking yesterday during the first National Tourism Conference held in Lilongwe, which attracted local and foreign participants.<\/p>\n
But he said there is need to put the sector in order if it is to make significant strides in the development of the economy.<\/p>\n
He said, for instance, the sector is threatened by unplanned and substandard tourism establishments especially along the lakeshore, absence of a tourism map, poor road infrastructure and lack of collaboration in the private sector.<\/p>\n
Chairperson of Malawi Tourism Council Florentine Kabefu said some of the policies the government develops such as high taxes and visas are crippling the growth of the sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecently, visas were introduced and because of that we have lost businesses. A lot of cancellations are happening with different operators because people are thinking that it is expensive to visit the country. People are paying $75 for just a single entry visa,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The 2015 Tourism Statistics Report from National Statistical Office indicates that the sector contributed K221 billion to the economy\u2014about a 7.2 percent of Growth Domestic Product.<\/p>\n
The conference is being held under the theme \u2018Tourism the future of a diversified economy\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha has said there are plans to start marketing the country\u2019s various tourism products and opportunities globally as a way of increasing the sector\u2019s capacity to contribute tremendously to the country\u2019s economy. He said Malawi has minerals and resources that can attract tourists and foreign investors, hence the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44005","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\/44005","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=44005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44013,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44005\/revisions\/44013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}