Tourism stakeholders have expressed fear that Malawi risks losing its openness status and fail to compete effectively as a preferred tourist destination within the region following the visa policy shift.
This follows a visa policy shift that Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Decentralisation Joseph Mwanamvekha announced in the Mid-year Budget Review Statement in Parliament in Lilongwe on Friday.
Following the shift, tourists from 70 countries will be required to pay visa fee to enter Malawi, two years after the government lifted restriction.
Mwanamvekha said free visa access has been revoked as one of the non-tax measures the new administration has taken to enhance revenue mobilisation.
“Visa free access to Malawi is being revoked with immediate effect and visa application fee will apply on a reciprocity basis,” he said.
Mwanamvekha said tourists operators should immediately apply for foreign exchange dealing licences from the Reserve Bank of Malawi so that foreign tourists should be paying their expenses in foreign currency.
But tourism stakeholders say although the government wants visa fees for revenue generation purposes, open visa status increases the number of visitors, which in turn improves tourism income.
In an interview on Monday, Orbis Destination Management Company managing director Innocent Kaliati said such policy shift could make Malawi less competitive to tourists compared to its neighbours.
He said: “It is true that open countries attract more tourists due to the less red tape involved.
“This decision is going to make it hard to sell Malawi as a tourist destination considering that our immediate neighbours are open countries.”
Malawi Tourism Council executive director Memory Momba Kamthunzi was not immediately available for comment, but is on record as having observed that tourists’ traffic had increased since the waiver of visa fees introduced in February 2024.
“Information that we are getting from relevant institutions is showing that the number of tourists has significantly increased since the waiver was implemented,” she said.
Following the removal of restrictions in 2024, Malawi improved its rank on openness as the 2024 Africa Visa Openness Index ranked the country on position 22 from 25 out of 54 economies.
The index, jointly produced by the African Development Bank and the African Union Commission to evaluate accessibility of African countries based on visa policies, indicated that people from 17 African countries did not need a visa to enter Malawi.
This followed the rollout of a policy that lifted visa restrictions for travellers from 70 countries, including the United Kingdom, China, Russia and Southern African Development Community and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa countries.
Malawi has been struggling to tap from the global tourism boom since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic although the country is touted as one of the most attractive and complete destinations in Africa.
Data from World Travel and Tourism Council indicates that Malawi generated $39.4 million (about K70 billion) in 2019 from international visitor spending, but the earnings dropped to $35.5 million (about K62 billion) in 2023.
Projections further showed that in 2024, Malawi generated $42.9 million (about K75 billion) from international visitor spending, representing a 20.7 percent jump, according to the data.
However, the earnings are far below what Zimbabwe at $215.1 million (about K377 billion), Zambia at $901 million (about K1.6 trillion) and Mozambique at $327 million (about K573 billion) generated in 2023.
