MINISTER of Tourism and Arts Hon. Charles Banda has said he is excited that the first Hilton Garden Inn Hotel will soon open doors to the public in Zambia.
Speaking when the hotel General Manager Kudzayi Nheweyembwa paid a courtesy call on him at his office this morning, the Minister said there is need for hotel infrastructure in all areas of interest.
He said the good news coming from the Hilton is that they have already set a target market and that the hotel will provide the kind of accommodation that the different clientele are look for.
Hon. Banda said the investment is welcome to Zambia and that his Ministry will support it by giving all the support required for the hotel to succeed.
And Mr. Nheweyembwa said National Pensions Scheme Authority (NAPSA) owns the hotel and Hilton comes in as brand and operators.
He said the hotel currently employs 110 members of staff with a strong focus on youth employment with 45 percent of the staff below the age of 30 and 25 percent below the aged of 25.
Mr. Nheweyembwa said the hotel is also in the process of signing of a second hotel in Lusaka because Zambia appears to provide a huge potential in tourism and that Hilton is here to stay.
Hilton Garden Inn Hotel is an American brand but has been in Africa for over 50 years with presence in 17 countries.
The Tourism potential for this country is huge, However the team tasked to superintend over that Ministry have no creativity. Zambia truly has a unique tourist package. Tourism is the lowest hanging fruit for job creation and income generation for Zambia.
Same old story of ‘potential’ but zero action to transform our tourism. It’s all talk and frankly my dear I don’t give a d amn.
This answers the question why vendors were hounded out of Cairo road under the guise of “fighting cholera”
Our Pension money!! How much did this costs? NAPSA….why don’t you build hospitals or reprocessing factories instead?
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!! VERY BAD
Very bad reporting. Have these journalists been to school or is Evelyn Hone and other journalism training institutions out of their depth to produce such writers. Where is the location of the hotel? when will it open? Basic information is left out of the story!
The edita is also to blame for not checking the story before publishing it
Am now in the Tourist Capital of Zambia… Shooting the Tourism reality Show.#LivingstoneTour…follow me on the internet, on all Social media platforms… Mulenga Moses for 10,000 US dollars
Yes, there is potential of turning Zambia into a sex tourism country, bravo.
Comment:Wow! This is indeed a welcome development and I am sure more opportunities will come up from this development even with opening of the second in Zambia in due course and fellow citizens we must remain positive of such happening for our own good.
We have a few issues to address the biggest being an uneducated minister with absolutely zero skills and training in tourism who see’s a hotel coming in the country as a saviour. Right now, there is a race when it comes to five and four star hotels coming to Africa to expand their brands because of the money involved. This is a huge revenue generator for them and we need to sit down and ask ourselves why we cannot build our own hotels and keep all the revenue to ourselves. Leakage occurs when money leaves a destination and this is what happens. These hotels have their own reservation systems abroad where all transactions occur in their own currencies so how much does Zambia get? Unless we are extremely smart when it comes to contracts among other things we can make money. Mr. Banda is…
Minister of Tourism of Arts Hon. Charles Banda is the wrong person to be put in charge of this ministry. We have been on Cabinet Ministers parliament government page and checked his portfolio which is fake. He claims to have two degrees but how he communicates is the complete opposite if the advertised degrees he boasts of. This is what is wrong with this government and that is hiring an unskilled labour force. Hiring friends because they voted for us or hiring relatives and the big one is hiring based on a name! These people have zero skills but because their parent was a minister or they carry the name, they automatically qualify even with no training, hands on skills and especially education. In these ministerial positions, we need to hire people with real degrees.
It’s not a huge number of jobs considering the size of the investment. I wonder if we can do better. Not all westerners want 5*, what about eco-tourism?