Malawi Tourism Council (MTC) has cautioned that high travel costs, weak infrastructure and skill shortages limit the local tourism sector’s capacity to provide an alternative source of foreign exchange.
The assessment comes days after Malawi and Zambia agreed to deepen tourism cooperation through joint destination marketing, cross-border tourism products and regional tourism promotion under a new bilateral initiative announced on the sidelines of Africa’s Travel Indaba 2026 in Durban, South Africa.
MTC executive director Memory Momba Kamthunzi said in an interview on Tuesday that tourism has become a critical pillar of Malawi’s economic transformation to reduce the country’s dependence on tobacco.
“Tourism is a vital pillar of Malawi’s future, but we must view it as a strategic catalyst rather than an overnight miracle,” she said.
Kamthunzi said data demonstrate tourism’s growing importance to Malawi’s foreign exchange position, although the sector is unlikely to replace tobacco revenues in the near term.
Instead, she said tourism should be viewed as an increasingly important economic buffer capable of generating jobs, attracting investment and diversifying export earnings.
Kamthunzi noted that business tourism, conferences and meetings currently account for between 60 and 70 percent of tourism spending in Malawi, making regional integration efforts particularly important.
“By leveraging regional bodies such as Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and Southern African Development Community to market the region as a unified destination, we can accelerate these hard-currency injections,” she said.
Ministry of Business, Industrialisation, Trade and Tourism Principal Secretary Jeanie Mnyenyembe said Malawi was pursuing stronger regional tourism integration as part of efforts to expand tourism revenues and attract more visitors.
“The establishment of a Joint Technical Committee will provide a practical platform for our teams to work together on tourism development initiatives, knowledge sharing and joint marketing efforts,” she said.
Mnyenyembe also cited deteriorating road infrastructure to key tourist attractions, high borrowing costs facing local tourism investors, weak international marketing and shortages of specialised hospitality skills.
The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Development Index ranks Malawi near the bottom at 115 out of 119 countries, lagging behind regional peers such as Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Among the biggest challenges is the cost of reaching Malawi, which remains one of the more expensive destinations in the region due to limited direct international flights and costly travel connections, according to experts.
The country also faces shortages of specialised personnel including internationally certified safari guides, executive chefs and digital tourism managers, forcing some operators to recruit expatriate staff for senior positions.
Tourism experts say the combination of skills shortages, infrastructure gaps and limited marketing budgets weakens Malawi’s competitiveness and constrains both domestic and international tourism spending.
According to the 2026 Malawi Government Annual Economic Report, tourism’s contribution to gross domestic product rose from K394.7 billion during the Covid-19 downturn in 2020 to K865.2 billion in 2024, with projections indicating the sector could contribute K1 trillion this year.
The report also shows that visitor exports foreign currency spent by international travellers in Malawi rose to 13.6 percent of total exports in 2024 from just two percent during the pandemic.
