Lubango - The Minister of Tourism, Márcio Daniel, warned on Friday in Lubango of the need for Angola to seek experience from other regions to take greater advantage of the Okavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area, currently little explored.
The minister, who was speaking at the central event of World Tourism Day, marked on Friday, 27, said that the country is committed to taking advantage of this cross-border conservation area and the challenges include investing in road infrastructure, electricity supply, communications and border posts.
The Angolan component of this Okavango/Zambezi transfrontier conservation area is 90,000 square kilometres, made up of the municipalities of Cuito-Cuanavale, Mavinga, Rivungo, Dirico and Nankova and two national parks, Luenga Luiana and Mavinga.
For the minister 'it is not tolerable' that the same landscape, wildlife, abundance of water resources mean for Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia, thousands of tourists, foreign exchange resources, jobs and for Angola only unexplored nature.
'We have to change the state of affairs. It is not a matter of inventing the wheel. This was invented several years ago and is being perfected. We just have to have the humility to learn from those who already do nature tourism and do it well', he said.
He stressed that along with this learning, if Angola aims to have quality of service that exists in neighboring countries, there is a need to attribute to the national business community the incentives and working conditions that the governments of these countries attribute to their entrepreneurs, otherwise they will continue to lose to neighboring competition.
The Government, according to the minister, is structuring a line of financing dedicated to tourism, because without a serious commitment to financing and giving traction to the entrepreneur, all the discourse on tourism for the diversification of the economy will be nothing more than paper.
To this end, Márcio Daniel said that the ministry is working on the diversification and sophistication of sources of financing for tourism activity, with the introduction of the tourist tax in the National Legal System, to strengthen resilience and the system of guarantees, necessary to cushion the risk of borrowers with the financial system.
The celebrations of World Tourism Day invite everyone to reflect on the key role that tourism plays in strengthening global peace and development. This year it takes place under the motto 'Tourism and Peace',
Tourism is a crucial vehicle for promoting mutual understanding, unity between peoples and economic and social progress.
The Okavango/Zambezi Regional Project (KASA), launched in 1993, is the largest cross-border initiative on the African continent, with 444,462 square kilometres. It connects 36 conservation areas in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, in the Southern African region.
