Continued from last week
According to National Heritage Conservation Commission (NHCC) senior conservation officer Richard Mbewe, Victoria Falls World Heritage Site in Livingstone recorded a high number of local visitors during the year 2015 compared to the previous years.
Mr Mbewe said out of 156, 967 visitors that passed through Victoria Falls gates from January to December 2015 as tourists or researchers or ordinary visitors, only about 30, 000 were foreigners while the remaining 126,000 were local people.
He said about 67 per cent of victors to Victoria Falls were Zambians which gave an impetus to suggest that Zambia were currently appreciating their own heritage which was not the case  over the past years.
“The majority of visitors to the Victoria Falls in 2015 were local people and this is quite a large number.
“It shows the locals are now appreciating their own heritage and they will not destroy what is dear to their hearts,” Mr Mbewe said.
He said the number of local people visiting Victoria Falls had been on the increase since 2013 after Livingstone and Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Town co-hosted the 20th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly.
In 2013, the numbers for the locals visiting Victoria Falls was 52 per cent while the number in 2014 was about 57 per cent.
Unlike recent concerns which suggested that foreign tourists were not visiting the Victoria Falls on the Zambian side due to low water levels, more local tourists visited and explored the natural wonder of the World.
In fact it is incorrect to suggest that there is nothing to see when the Victoria Falls is dry or when falls has low water levels.
Tourists usually have a lot of activities to undertake on the Zambian side when there is little or no water at the Victoria Falls.
When the falls is completely dry like the case was a few weeks ago, this was the time when more tourists could undertake more activities.
One of the famous activities, which can only be undertaken when water levels are low, is water rafting and it takes place from August to January.
This involves rafting from the Boiling Point at the bottom of the falls through a number of Gorges on the downstream of Zambezi River.
Tourists are also able to walk on the edge or top of Victoria Falls from the Eastern part to the Livingstone Island and be able to access the Devils Pool and Angels Pool among other historical places.
On the Zimbabwe side, some of these activities cannot be done within the falls because of high waters levels in most parts of the year.
For researchers, they may not do a proper research when Victoria Falls has huge volumes of water but it is easier to research when water levels are low as one can move freely from the top to the bottom.
It is therefore encouraging to hear that more Zambians visited Victoria Falls in 2015 compared to the previous years.
This has given an assurance that the country’s heritage site can sustain tourists during any period of the year.
ZTA Managing Director Felix Chaila says he was excited to note that more than 60 per cent of tourist arrivals in 2015 were Zambians compared to the previous years.
Mr Chaila said the country could however do better in terms of facilitating more domestic tourism.
“We need to make our tourism products cheaper to local people so that local tourists from Lusaka, Coperbelt and other provinces can come here in Livingstone and explore the various services on offer,” he said.
Mr Chaila said the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) industry was currently one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism base in Zambia and world over as it mainly attracted local tourists.
Globally, the MICE segment carters for about 400, 000 events annually across the globe with a total of about US$ 280 billion out of which about 14, 000 are meetings, conferences, conventions and congresses involving professional associations, corporate bodies, religious groups and inter-governmental bodies.
Most tourism enterprises are now investing in conference rooms to capture this business segment which assures high room occupancy rates and increased consumption of food and beverages among others.
By and large, Zambia still needs to encourage more domestic tourists to sample their own country.
Both the private sector and the Government should play their parts to improve the environment for local tourists.
Operators in the tourism industry must reduce their charges to encourage more Zambians to visit their premises.
It doesn’t make sense for a tourism entity to keep its charges high and remain empty for most parts of the year when local people are readily available to utilise their facilities at an affordable price.
For a long time now, most Zambians have been complaining that charges in the tourism sector are exorbitant and seemingly tailored to suit foreign tourists.
Hotels, lodges, restaurants and other tourism sites can be fully booked in all seasonal if they mainly targeted domestic tourists.
On the other hand, the Government can introduce specific incentives targeted at Zambians especially on those who wish to invest in the tourism sector.
The benefits of domestic tourism promotion includes the creation of year-round traveller activity, lessening the troughs in the seasonality curve, and enabling ‘365’ industry operations.
Further, there is generation of significant revenues and employment as domestic tourists keep spending money within their home country.
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