Zambia recorded a total 2.2 million foreign arrivals, an increase of 900,000 over the total arrivals of 1.3 million in 2023.
This is a phenomenal growth of nearly 70 percent year on year.
Tourism was one of the best performing sectors in 2024.
During a media briefing in Lusaka on Friday, minister of Tourism Rodney Sikumba said a total of 530,110 were visits to tourist destinations encompassing national museums, national parks and heritage sites against the 486,418 visits recorded in 2023 representing an increase of 9.0 percent.
Mr Sikumba said with respect to non-tax revenue, the Treasury generated a total of K319.5 million against the target of K200.9 million, representing 59 percent increase in revenue generation.
“Tourism is one of the key economic sectors with huge potential to contribute to economic transformation and job creation and environmental sustainability as outlined in the Eighth National Develoment Plan (8NDP) and the Vision 2030. In line with this, the United Party for National Development (UPND) government has committed to increased budgetary allocations to the ministry,” the Minister said.
Mr Sikumba said when the New Dawn administration took over Government in 2021, the budget to the ministry was K338.5 million.
“We increased it to K421 million in 2022, rose to K769.5 million in 2024 and now stands at K1.23 billion in 2025. The Government has increased the budgetary allocation to the ministry of tourism by 281 percent in the four years of the New Dawn administration. This is all attributed the visionary leadership of the President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Hakainde Hichilema,” Mr Sikumba said.
He said Zambia is endowed with rich cultural and natural treasures that make the country a prime tourist destination with various water bodies, diverse wildlife and vibrant cultural heritage.
“Zambia to the world remains the best kept secret. Therefore, our mandate covers the following areas: facilitation of sustainable development of tourism through effective tourism planning, management and promotion; preservation of natural and cultural heritage; and sustainable management of wildlife and protected areas,” Mr Sikumba said.
He said his ministry successfully held the annual tourism excellence award ceremony where outstanding individuals and organisations shaping Zambia’s tourism and hospitality landscape were awarded.
The Ministry also relaunched domestic tourism campaign dubbed “take holiday yamu loko” to boost domestic tourism and a total of 51 operators signed up for the campaign.
Mr Sikumba said Zambia successfully held the first ever Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) Heads of State and Government summit which was attended by all five member states of KAZA.
KAZA lies in the Kavango and Zambezi river basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge.
The minister said with regards to digital marketing of destination Zambia, Zambia reached 1.5 billion digital global views of the destination on social media handles of the Zambia Tourism Agency due to destination Zambia marketing efforts.
“Zambia’s tourism is mainly nature based and therefore issues concerning the sustainable management and use of natural resources is paramount. We managed to develop and launch the first ever national community based natural resources management policy and its implementation plan (2023-2027) to enhance community participation in natural resource management,” Mr Sikumba said.
He said in the quest to mitigate incidences of human wildlife conflicts, Government procured six motor vehicles for rapid response and more will be procured this year while 80 wildlife police officers and 75 community scouts were trained as primary responders in human wildlife conflicts in hot spot areas.
“In addition, we procured and distributed fireworks to communities in hot spots for use to scare away problem animals. We maintained 16 airstrips dotted in the various national parks in collaboration with various cooperating partners,” Mr Sikumba said.
He said Government has commenced feasibility studies and designs for rehabilitation and upgrading of Jeki Airstrip in Lower Zambezi National Park, Chunga Airstrip in Kafue National Park, and Kalabo Airstrip in Kalabo connecting to Liuwa National Park under Green, Resilient and Transformational Tourism Development Project to enhance air connectivity to tourism circuits.
Mr Sikumba said Government graded and maintained a total of 3,813 km against a target of 4,000 km broken down as 2,718 km for access roads and 1,095 km for loop roads.
“Working with our cooperating partners, we restocked three national parks namely: Lusaka National Park with 20 Kafue Lechwe, 18 axis deer, 20 impala, two zebras and two white rhinos, the Nsumbu national park with three lions and the Kafue national park with 404 Kafue Lechwe sourced from kafue fisheries funded by African Parks,” he said.
Mr Sikumba said Government also conducted four national festivals, 10 provincial festivals and support hosting of five community festivals and issued 2,128 hunting licences and sold 2,527 animals.
By Benedict Tembo
If similar vigor was put into mine taxation, we would be going to the bank smiling. We just appear clueless when it comes to mining.
A lady told me she visited Zambia and lost 100kg of her weight in one month.
I said, sorry sorry to hear you couldn’t find good food in our country. She was disappointed of my reactions.
Instead she told me that she opened a traveling group to Zambia for over-weights. And she takes 10 customers every 3 months. And they all shed off weight as benefit.
Visa free policy is working it seems but the other countries should reciprocate as well.