Zambia will soon waive visa requirements for foreigners including Americans and Britons as it aims to boost its economy by raising annual tourist arrivals to a million by 2010, the country's tourism minister said on Tuesday.
Kabinga Pande, speaking at a Zambian investment conference in South Africa, said the government would scrap visa requirements for foreigners visiting for tourism purposes.
"We intend to waive visa requirements for people coming for tourism to Zambia. We are also working on plans for a (single)-visa system, whereby anyone coming to South Africa can use the same visa for entry into South Africa to enter Zambia," Pande told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
The move is part of plans by the government to shore up economic development in one of the world's poorest countries and create jobs. Tourism is regarded as crucial in this regard because it is labour intensive.
Pande said the government planned to raise the contribution of the tourism sector to gross domestic product from 2.0 percent in 2005 to 8.0 percent by 2010. Zambia's main economic activity is copper mining.
Pande said tourism earned Zambia $153 million in 2004. He said the government had also introduced various tax exemptions for investors in the tourism sector but gave no details. Pande separately told the conference that the government planned to raise the number of visitors to the country to 1.0 million in 2010 from 610,000 in 2004.
Officials say political turmoil in neighbouring Zimbabwe has helped Zambia attract more tourists. The two countries share the famed Victoria Falls and growing numbers of people are going to the Zambian side to view them. "To some extent the (Zimbabwe) problems have helped us to raise our tourism," Pande told Reuters. Zambia's other attractions include wildlife safari parks.
Like many African countries it is keen to "brand" itself as an ecotourist destination - a topic that will be on the agenda of a major conservation conference next week in Madagascar. Pande also said Zambia had introduced new laws to provide constitutional protection to foreign investors.