Zambia elected to World Tourism Organization Executive Committee

The ongoing 21st General Assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has seen Zambia elected for the first time to the Executive Committee, much to the delight of the Zambian delegation present and those at home, when the news reached Lusaka and Livingstone.

Zambia has been a dark horse of sorts in tourism terms, known as the “co-owner” of the mighty Victoria Falls, but at times overshadowed by Zimbabwe, where the riverside city of Victoria Falls, with the same name as the greatest waterfalls on Earth, has captured world attention to a larger degree than Zambia’s opposite number, Livingstone.

Often shy to drum their own drums and equally often lacking visibility, Zambia Tourism now has high hopes that the country’s presence with the top organization, UNWTO, will give them a platform from where to begin marketing the country in earnest. For a country of its size, the ambition to reach a million visitors in 2015 is clearly at the lower end of the scale of Zambia’s huge unexploited potential, and this latest rise in fame should help to exceed the million mark by some and then grow in leaps and bounds in the future.

The now 20 national parks invite visitors, besides other attractions like the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi River, with several museums giving a detailed insight into the past of the country, and authors like Gill Staden and Ilse Mwanza have extensively featured the country’s parks. In the case of Ilse’s book, the lesser known but nevertheless still spectacular other waterfalls, features hundreds of them across the country. Adventure activities like white-water rafting, kayaking, canoeing, horseback safaris, vacations on houseboats, walking with lions, or extended hikes are just some of the adrenaline-raising options visitors have when they come to explore the country.