Holiday Year

Its back to work and back to school for the nation during the month of January. A stroll through the busiest supermarkets highlights that cash is only being spent on school books and other requisites, basic food stuff such as mealie meal, cabbage and kapenta, rentals, ZESCO pre-paid power vouchers, and as always, talk time.

The butchery, alcohol, and confectionery sections of our supermarkets are deserted as the impact of reduced disposable income is experienced in reduced sales. Although it looks like the holiday season is over for Zambians, in fact the holiday season is just beginning for visitors to Africa who want to attend World Cup 2010.

Maputo is vibrating to the building excitement of the World Cup, Harare is running at full speed to capture the overspill from South Africa, Gaberone is upgrading roads to the South African borders, and other countries in the sub continent are face-lifting airports or introducing new tourism packages to mop up the spare cash that will flow into the region within the next few months.

The momentum in Zambia seems to be mainly on the free tickets to the World Cup being offered in the BP ‘Buy Fuel’ program and a few other corporate initiatives that have focussed on the 2010 soccer bonanza.

There have been many discussions and suggestions made on how Zambia can benefit from the 2010 Holiday Year. There is now need for the country to come out of the holiday spirit and engage into the business spirit by looking at the opportunities and acting rather than talking so that at least some deliberately developed benefits come to Zambia rather than the default crumbs that we have so often allowed ourselves to scramble for.

The immigration department could immediately embark on a customer care and support training program to become much more tourist friendly and accommodating in manner and action. This single act can attract twice as much tourists into Zambia than we currently do. Furthermore, visa on demand services at a much lower cost than is currently charged will multiply the number of visitors to Zambia during the 2010 holiday year.

The Kuomboka ceremony and other traditional ceremonies will be take place at the prescribed times during the year. Zambia can link these cultural events to the 2010 World Cup and expand the tourism potential to the extent that soccer focussed visitors will be exposed to our heritage and traditions during the year.

Zambia boasts of having over 15 national and game parks. The opportunity to develop holiday packages such as the 2008 ‘Destination Luapula’ is right at our doorsteps. Many foreign visitors will not know exactly what Africa has to offer them during their visit to the continent. It is up to us to create and fashion some sustainable packages and products that will thrill the visitors and also be sustainable for future tourism after 2010.

White water rafting was publicly acknowledged when the legendary ‘Kunta Kinte’ came to launch Sobek many years ago. Today, white water rafting on the Zambezi is no longer talked about and seems to have faded into oblivion. Zambia has the new opportunity to resurrect this tourism product which can be the most exhilarating experience of rafting to be found worldwide.

South Africa has traditionally built camping sites throughout the country for both domestic and foreign visitors to experience a cost-effective holiday within her borders. This can be true for Zambia too if we can develop some camping sites in all the provinces where some tourism wonders and opportunities can be identified. Government can allow a window for duty free imports of camping tents and equipment to attract investment for the 2010 holiday period.

The private sector is always available to invest where a good return can be made, and the banking sector is currently desperately looking for good projects and businesses to finance as the several new banks jostle for a market share in an economy that is not growing fast enough.

The time has come for possible the first public private partnership to kick off. Let us see private business and government get together in earnest during the months of January and February so that some quick decisions can be made on how to tap the resources of World Cup 2010.

Let us all keep in mind that 2010 is a holiday year for the rest of the world in so far as the World Cup is concerned. For South Africa and the Southern African sub continent 2010 is our year to reap the spoils of world class soccer.

Published 12 January 2010