Lusaka has the potential to help reach Zambia’s target of 1 million tourists per year by ensuring that business travellers to the capital city enjoy their stay beyond conferencing, meetings and workshops. Business travellers to Lusaka are an untapped market for tourism and Zambia has not taken advantage of the capital city’s central location for international and regional business meetings and conferences.
According to the Ministry of Tourism and Arts, business tourists accounted for 54 percent of the total visitors to Zambia in 2015. Conference arrivals in the same year totaled 22, 902 to represent an increase of 9 percent from the previous year.
Promotion of tourism activities and facilities in and around Lusaka could position the city as more than a destination for business conferencing and register increased revenue from tourist visits to museums, national monuments, game parks, cultural and sporting events.
Taj Pamodzi general manager Rajeev Khanna says the capital city attracts a high number of business travelers for conferences and meetings, with majority of them coming to Lusaka and leaving without experiencing facilities such as the Lusaka National Park, Munda Wanga Environmental Park or First Republican President Kenneth Kaunda’s former home in Chilenje.
“At Taj Pamodzi, we’re always looking to go beyond our offer of international class conferencing and meeting facilities for business travelers. We do this by promoting tourist activities that a business or government executive from out of the country can enjoy while staying in Lusaka. The secret to making Lusaka more than a conferencing destination is to cross-sell the recreational and entertainment facilities and experiences within or around the capital city,” he says.
Khanna adds that as part of the global five star Taj Group of hotels, Taj Pamodzi remains committed to providing leading class luxury hospitality, conferencing, recreation and dining in its quest to promote Zambia’s tourism sector.
He notes that Taj Pamodzi has the largest conferencing venue among Lusaka’s hotels, accommodating up to 500 international delegates, all of who are potential tourists that can explore and experience Lusaka’s dormant tourism hotspots.
“Our vision is to provide our guests with international level services while promoting Lusaka’s tourism potential. Taj Pamodzi understands role that tourism plays in the development of the country, as it contributed 3.4 percent to the GDP in 2015. It is for this reason that we’re calling on service providers in entertainment and recreation to collaborate with us in providing an all-round experience for travelers to the capital city,” Khanna said.
Zambia recorded a total of 931,782 international tourists arrivals in 2015 compared to 946,969 tourists in 2014 resulting in a decline of 1.6 percent. Out of the 53.3 million international tourists’ arrivals to Africa, Zambia received only 1.7 percent of the total tourists’ arrivals in Africa.
To come and see what in Lusaka? Kaponyas, street kids, Litter & garbage everywhere? Lets be serious for once!
A city with no public toilets, no public drinking water …. what will they see?
We just heard the security in Lusaka is such bad you can’t hold a rally or press conference at a hotel.
So is it sex-tourist are they on?
A tourist has no choice but arrive at KKAirport if his final destination is chipata/mufuwe. So yes lusaka can record 1million. But make Mfuwe an international airport, it will be hard for LSK to record 1million. Why because Lusaka is dirty city. Garbage all over the city, balunshi, people eating while walking, street vending, horn sounding by motorists, mango selling, fish, beef, nkumba, that place around Lumumba awe sure LSK is another place.
Imagine that! Zambian people don’t even how to be on time.
Totally agree, the senegalese U20 team while in Ndola visited masala market. They spent a bit more time in that place between the one-way road & the fish market. Anyone who’s been to masala will understand.
Let’s explore zambia can even spread a banner that says “WELCOME TO THE FILTHIEST CITY IN THE WORLD”.
Dream on but put in first place attention to things that attract tourists as cleanliness and general attitude towards honesty! Rajeeve Khanna is in Lusaka yet seems unaware that there is nothing still attractive at Munda Wanga Environmental Park! Investment responding to tourist needs must be proactively met with positive and friendlier policies that draw participation by locals.
yeah as long as they dont have to pass through the FILTHY CBD…nothing to see there but TRASH…Garbage City. USELESS
Dusty streets ,salaula sellers ,a semi serious chaotic CBD and no-go residential areas like Misisi means Lusaka is not a serious tourist city.And our restaurants don’t observe high levels of hygiene which is a must for tourists so your “international level services” just sounds hollow.
BAFIKALA ABOVE! BE PROUD OF YOUR ZAMBIA. BLOGGING IN THE DARK. THOSE OF YOU IN THE US/EUROPE… YOU CAN’T EVEN PROUDLY WALK THE STREETS OR BE VIEWED/SEEN ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE WHITE PEOPLE… YOU ALWAYS HARBOR INFERIORITY COMPLEXITY!
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE ZEDIANS BAFIKALA, NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO OR END UP BECOMING/DOING ON EARTH!
ZD1
Sorry, Khanna, Lusaka is a dirty city to attract tourists. What can they see? Street vendors? The city is not safe as PF cadres and police are violent. Lusaka national park? I have never seen a video of this park except the above useless photo. And what can one see at Mundawanga? You think today’s tourists just go to a place without viewing it on YouTube? You are joking.
So it’s clean enough to attract businessmen and investors? By your logic, a man can marry a prostitute because another man found her attractive enough to have carnal knowledge of her.
Those are shallow-minded pronouncements! What is there in Lusaka to attract foreign tourists?Munda wanga and Lusaka National Park, my foot!
Kwena, people can never know a good point when they see it! Instead of pushing your foolish mayor an council to clean upthe city and improve facilities, muli busy hammering away at somebody offering you insight into the possibilities. Typical poverty mentality.
ZPS has told the Nation the security situation in Lusaka is unstable so why would Tourist come to Lusaka. For what and risk their lives. ZPS has demonstrated beyond any doubt that Zambia is a Failed Police State. So why would Tourists risk their lives to come to a country with an illegitimate govt which has no respect for Rule of Law, Constitutionalism,Human Rights and Good Governance? With all this violence and lawlessness why risk one’s life by coming to Zambia.
Most of the negative comments above are from those that have not been to lusaka in ages, or wanting to compare lusaka to London, which, you can not.
I was there on holiday a few months ago and was impressed by its relatively cleanliness, good hospitality and liveliness. The place is buzzing!!
For once in the 25 years I have been abroad, I could actually see myself living there semi-permanently.
The one problem I have in lusaka is the high prices of pretty much everything.
Do not just condemn your country without fact-checking. Go visit your relatives, otherwise you will end up like what Paul Ngozi sang “a Phiri anabwera”..
To all loveing zambians late as campaign for keep Lusaka or Zambian clean with public toilets
We cannot attract tourists when one leader can’t still concede defeat!
Since Police are saying Lusaka is not a safe place, it is better to put a cautionary message on all international travel media