Sadc to harmonise hotel grading system

Director of Tourism in the Ministry of Tourism Wildlife and Culture,Isaac Katopola, says countries like Malawi which struggle to bring in tourists will greatly benefit from the decision by the Sadc country’s to use the South African grading system.

South Africa, which is one of the biggest tourist destinations in Africa, has a well developed tourism sector attracting millions of tourists a year.

In 2012 alone, about 9 188 368 tourists visited South Africa up 10 percent from the 8 339 354 in 2011.

This was more than double the global tourist growth of four percent.

In an interview on Monday in Lilongwe, Katopola said Sadc is trying to harmonise the grading system because doing so would mean giving all the countries in the region an equal chance of selling themselves to the outside world.

“The South African grading system has stood the test of time and South African tourist destinations are very attractive partly because of the stringent ways of their grading system.

“Currently, this issue is under the Regional Tourism of Southern Africa (Retosa) but there is some progress, hopefully next year we will see more progress,” said Katopola.