From BRIAN HATYOKA in HARARE, ZIMBABWE-
TOUR operators in Zambia have been urged to legalise their operations to enable them drive maximum benefits from the tourism sector.
Sigo Adventurers and Tours director Walter Shakalonga said there was need for tour operators to obtain practising licenses from the Ministry of Tourism and Arts to raise their profiles and reputation locally and abroad.
Mr Shakalonga noted that most operators had remained static for years mainly because they were operating illegal and tourists did not have confidence in engaging them.
He was speaking in an interview at the just-ended 2014 Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Africa Expo which attracted more than 200 tourism exhibitors as well as tourism buyers and the media from Africa and beyond across the globe.
After the Expo, foreign delegates went to Masvingo and visited the Great Zimbabwe National Monument where Zimbabwe drives its name from.
The delegation would continue visiting several other tourism sites in Bulawayo, Hwange and Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe under the sponsorship of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA).
Mr Shakalonga, who is a Livingstone-based tour operator, said it was time tour operators legalised their operations so that they derive full benefits from the tourism sector.
The money paid to obtain a tourism licence was minimal compared to huge gains operators would receive when they had a license.
Attending the international tourism expos had helped his company to re-position itself for increased business opportunities in the tourism sector.
Currently, his company was engaging Spanish and French tourism agents to bring tourists to Zambia for 20 days in 2015.
Mr Shakalonga commended ZTB for subsidising local tour operators to attend shows abroad saying most players in the Zambian tourism industry were foreigners.
He said he was picked, through ZTB, to be a tourism buyer to attend the 2014 Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Africa Fair in Harare where he met several buyers from Canada, Netherlands, South Africa and Kenya who were interested to sell Zambian tourism.