Malawi government has secured $800,000 (about K660 million) from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to help recoveries in the country's tourism sector.
The grant comes at a time when SADC countries are pulling up efforts in resuscitating the hospitality sector back to the period before the pandemic.
Malawi's Minister of Tourism and Culture Michael Usi, made the announcement in Lilongwe during the commemoration of the World Tourism day where he said the money would be used for matching grants by small-scale players in the hospitality and tourism industry.
The grant is expected to benefit 50 micro, small and medium tourism enterprises which are struggling to access finance to enhance their competitiveness.
“Disbursement of the matching grant would commerce in the coming month. We are putting in place policies to ensure that local communities directly participate in the tourism value chain rather than operate on the peripherals of the tourism industry,” Minister Usi said.
The funds would cushion beneficiaries from possible effects of the Covid pandemic and help them take a step towards recovery as the sector is one of the hardest hit where, in 2020 alone, over 300,000 people lost their jobs.
Recent figures indicate that the tourism sector directly supported 3 percent of employment in Malawi, creating about 233,000 jobs.
The sector has for a long time been beamed as the game changer for Malawi if nurtured well.
In its efforts to boost the sector, Malawi introduced a five year strategy for marketing the country to the world in order to increase tourists’ inflow, 'The Strategic Tourism Marketing Framework'.
The strategy redefines Malawi’s tourism product lines in the scope of Experience Lake, Experience Nature, Experience Wildlife, Experience Culture and Experience Mice.
It is earmarked to market Lake Malawi, which is the fifth largest fresh-water lake in the world by volume, the ninth largest lake in the world by area and the third largest and second deepest lake in Africa with high endemic fish bio-diversity.
The nature scope encompasses the country’s diversity of landscape including tea estates, forest reserves, streams, waterfalls, mountains and plateaus.
The strategy also sells Malawi’s cultural practices and cultural village setup to give tourists a feel of typical village life.
This year’s World Tourism Day was commemorated under the theme 'Tourism for Inclusive Growth'.
