New Dawn Government Budget Praised By The Tourism Sector

Former Livingstone Tourism Association (LTA) President, Alexander Muthali, has praised the New Dawn government’s budget, specifically the allocations to the tourism sector.

He described the budget as an early Christmas for those in the sector. 

In his comments, he said, “This is an early Christmas to us because it will make us become competitive in the region. This is a Christmas gift to our foreign tourists to start coming. Looking around I can think in the tourism sector this is the first ever best budget since Independence. This (budget) is perfect,"

The new budget, announced last Friday, outlined the government's plans to increase tourist sector contributions to gross domestic product to 31.4%

Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane, said that the policies will aim to strengthen and grow the sector.

One of these policies includes removing visa requirements from certain countries.

He said, "I propose to waive visa arrivals for tourists from United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Norway, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, the Gulf States and the European Union. This measure will take effect from midnight tonight. The revenue loss from this measure will be minimal."

There is also more emphasis being placed on domestic tourism with Zambians being encouraged to travel within Zambia.

Mr Muthali stated, “What we need to do is to get our interest to travel; we actually need to make it (local tourism) cheaper. Like the COVID-19 outbreak, if there is any outbreak we get closed; you are done, so we need to make it cheaper for Zambians to travel and enjoy tourism. If we get this correct then the sky is the limit, then we are open for business.”