This year, Malawi joined the rest of the world again in commemorating World Tourism Day, which is observed on September 27.
As with all other annual celebrations in this country, it is mostly just about the day and nothing else. On days like these, beautiful speeches are made by men and women in elegant attire.
Politicians and other policy makers come out to shine – to impress those of us watching on TV. After that, these people go back to their daily lives and continue conducting business as usual. It is an art we have mastered.
One of the biggest problems that we face as a country is that we have more people who are good at talking and not acting.
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Many are those who want to appear impressive but they have never impressed. We are talking about politicians who over-promise during campaigns, ministers who share grand visions for their ministries but never deliver, managers who have well-written plans for the improvement of their industries, but such plans end up gathering dust on top of some shelf that is never cleaned.
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This has become the way of doing things in Malawi, and our tourism sector falls within this mess.
The Malawi Government has always made noise about investing in tourism for economic growth, but very little, if any, has gone towards that.
Most of the people who have had a chance to see other parts of the world will testify that Malawi is sitting on gold when it comes to tourism.
This is a country with enormous potential that is just not utilised enough. People out there create artificial lakes and canals for tourist attraction because their gods did not bless them with any lakes that could bring them money.
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And here we are, watching Lake Malawi grow old while we continue to talk about how the lake can make us money.
There are places like Zomba Mountain that have potential for tourism, and the government, through the responsible ministry, has never thought of investing in this.
The topography of Zomba Mountain is not very different from that of Table Mountain in South Africa, and yet the latter makes billions of Rands for South Africa while ours gives us nothing.
People travel from as far as Blantyre just to listen to music on Mulunguzi dam, but they must be ready to relieve themselves in grass make-shift structures on the mountain.
There is nothing there for tourists. This is a space that can have cable cars, fun parks, museums, art galleries and other facilities that can make the city and the country money. But those who make decisions do not think that far.
Most places that attract tourists in this country are privately owned and the government gets very little revenue from them.
A poor country like ours has to target its efforts towards collective wealth. The manner in which we have approached capitalism leaves very little room for those with nothing to be in a position of having something.
As it stands, the rich will continue to have it all while the poor will have no chance at improving their lives. The government of Malawi needed to be the first and biggest investor in tourism and in any other sector that we regard central to economic development.
It is about time we corrected the error that the Bakili Muluzi administration made by privatising all key cash cows.
The government must invest public resources in its natural resources so that the returns from tourism serve the public more than it does private entities. That is the only way we can reclaim our days of glory.
In 2023, it is sad to see that Malawi is still very wasteful when it comes to utilising natural resources for economic development. Its people continue to live in dire poverty when the land has the potential to feed and nourish each one of us.
All we get is the talk. We are very good at slogans and buzz words – telling the world of how beautiful our country is. But what have we done with that beauty?
We are good at dressing up and showing up for events that never benefit us in the end. Malawi is like that rich man in the village who is rumoured to have all the money in the world but still walks around with torn clothes on bare feet.
