For years it was regarded as a backwater and the poor relation to its southern neighbour, but the spiralling crisis in Zimbabwe has led to a massive upsurge in Zambia’s tourism industry.
A total of 650Â 000 foreign visitors travelled to Zambia last year, a rise of nearly half a million on the year 2000, bringing in vital revenue to one of the poorest countries in Africa.
The figures, however, contrast sharply with those for President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, for so long a favourite haunt of Western tourists, but which recorded a 49% fall in visitor numbers last year.
The reversal of fortunes is most starkly illustrated at the Victoria Falls, one of the world’s great tourist attractions that straddles the common border.
In the nearby Zambian town of Livingstone, named after the British explorer David Livingstone who was the first Westerner to set eyes on the falls, new hotels and a first shopping mall have sprung up in recent months, while work to extend the runway at the local airport is currently ongoing.
While the once sleepy Livingstone is bustling with activity, cut-price deals on the Zimbabwean side have failed to fill the vacancies in hotels such as The Royal, a traditional byword for luxury.
According to Gill Staden, editor of The Livingstonian newsletter and former deputy head of the local tourism association, Zimbabwean businessmen are now sniffing investment opportunities across the border.
While Zambia has single digit annual inflation, the level is over 1Â 200% across the border and unemployment is at about 80%.
“There’s been so much development in the last 10 years, incredible,” said Staden.
“We have a lot of business people who have come to invest on this side. We were always looked at as poor cousins. They never came over here, thought we were awful people and felt sorry for us.”
The extension to the runway should enable direct flights from Europe and possibly even from the United States.
Up to four flights a day are already operating from Johannesburg, including by British Airways who are widely seen as testing the market for flights from their base in London.
British tourist Bob Jones, on holiday with his wife Joan from Croydon in south London, had flown from South Africa with a tour operator.
“Zambia appeared to be safer and we hear a lot in the papers about Zimbabwe and Mugabe, so we thought this country is trying itself on its own feet, we thought we could come and help,” said Jones as he took in the majestic sunrise on the Zambian side of the falls.
Another tourist from New York, who would only give his name as Andy after his son spent a lengthy stint in Zimbabwe recently, also cited the deteriorating situation under Mugabe for his decision to stick to Zambia.
“I read the newspapers and, if they are to be believed, I would not want to take whatever incremental risk in a place where people are being brutally oppressed and corruption appears to be deeply rooted and benefiting very, very few,” he said.
While Zambians are by and large delighted to attract big-spending Western tourists, the rapid expansion is putting strains on the environment.
The columns of The Livingstonian are stuffed with planning applications to change homes into guesthouses alongside heated exchanges over plans for a hotel and golf course complex within the national park, which adjoins the falls.
Developers Legacy have been widely ridiculed for offering to build a footpath in the middle of the golf course to accommodate complaints about building on the natural habitat for the area’s elephants.
A foundation stone has already been laid despite objections from the Wildlife and Environmental Conservation Society of Zambia, which has called the project an “outrageous desecration” of an area that has been declared a world heritage site by the United Nations’ cultural body, Unesco.
“Livingstone is booming but we have to be careful that we do not over-develop and destroy the environment so people do not come here anymore,” said Staden. “We do not want it to become like Niagara Falls.” — AFP