By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –
THE Zambia Tourism Board (ZTB) is developing a data base to measure domestic tourism and come up with actual numbers of tourists visiting the Victoria Falls and other sites.
ZTB managing director Felix Chaila said the data base for measuring domestic tourists was being developed because it was the backbone for growth of the tourism industry.
The ZTB would create a base where the growth rate of arrivals to the domestic destination was at least 15 per cent annually.
“The target for domestic tourism is to actually create a base where the growth rate of arrivals to various destinations is at least 15 per cent per year,” he said.
Mr Chaila said in an interview that the growth of domestic tourism was vital to developing the entire tourism sector.
“For international tourists we have a measure that we use to get statistics at the point of entry at the international airports but for domestic tourists we are establishing a base to measure the statistics,” he said.
Mr Chaila said ZTB was still using satellite points where it was easy to get figures citing the Victoria Falls and game parks as statistics were easily stored at gates.
The ZTB annual report for 2013 indicated that Zambian residents make up only 35 per cent of the visitors to the country’s national parks.
He said ZTB had continued to undertake various activities locally to stimulate interest in domestic tourism among citizens and residents.
In 2012, 88,505 residents visited the Victoria Falls accounting for less than one per cent of Zambian residents.
“It is premature to say that we have attracted such a number of people locally until we have a measure in place to determine how many domestic tourists were recorded in a year,” Mr Chaila said.
He however said there were a lot of indicators that domestic tourism in the South Luangwa had increased.