UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
PULSE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: TOURISM IN MALAWI, THE WARM HEART OF AFRICA
GIANLUCA FRACASSO
M.Sc. Tourism Management and Marketing
PULSE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: TOURISM IN MALAWI, THE WARM HEART OF AFRICA
by
Gianluca Fracasso
2011
A dissertation presented in part consideration for the degree of MSc Tourism Management and Marketing
ABSTRACT This piece of research will focus on the analysis of tourism development problems and possibilities in one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi. In the last years the country has attempted to develop ecotourism to mitigate some of its development problems and to access some of the benefits linked with the international tourism business. However various instances of tourism development in the least developed economies presented in past researches have shown that poor developing countries that become international destination often display problems in terms of sustainable development with controversial effects: in Africa particularly, tourism has not always brought uniform development and overall welfare. This work will therefore examine the condition and organisation of the tourism industry in Malawi and the implications for sustainable development and ecotourism. The research has been conducted through an UK tourism organisation, the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium. This approach has allowed to easily research on Malawi, both through qualitative and quantitative methods: in particular, an email questionnaire has been sent to companies in Malawi, while interviews with experts both in UK and Malawi have also taken place. Research findings will show how, despite some persistent limits and challenges, the tourism industry of Malawi is now well-positioned to continue developing favourably and if responsible management of businesses and services continues, the country can indeed strongly benefit from international tourism.
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“Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre�. (trans.: Africa always brings us something new) Historia Naturalis, bk. 8, sect. 42 Pliny the Elder (23 AD -79 AD)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………………..………………….p. 1 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………………………………………………………….p. 2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………………………………………………….p. 4 1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….…………..p. 5
1.1 AN OVERVIEW OF MALAWI AND ITS TOURISM INDUSTRY o 1.1.1 The Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium (MTMC)
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
2. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES……………….…….p. 17
2.1 DEBATES ON THE BENEFITS OF TOURISM IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES o 2.1.1 Tourism Impacts and Negative Factors Potentially Amplified in the LDC
2.2 DEPENDENCY THEORY AND THE ENCLAVE TOURISM MODEL IN THE LDC o 2.2.1 Globalisation and Conventional Tourism
2.3 NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT: SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE LDC AND IN AFRICA o 2.3.1 Responses to Sustainability in African Destinations
2.4 COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AND THE PROBLEM OF HR IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA
3. CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………….……………………p. 45
3.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
3.2 RESEARCH PROCEDURE: METHODOLOGY o 3.2.1 The Researcher’s Role as an Insider at the MTMC o 3.2.2 Field Notes o 3.2.3 Email Questionnaire iii
o 3.2.4 Qualitative Interviews o 3.2.5 Secondary Data and Consultations with Mr. Kelly White
4. CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION…………………………………….p. 55
4.1 GENERAL STATE OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT o 4.1.1 Tourism Infrastructures o 4.1.2 Patterns of Foreign Investments: South Africa, UK, Netherlands, China
4.2 STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY o 4.2.1 Globalisation of Tourism Business and Trends Towards Integration o 4.2.2 Oligopoly o 4.2.3 Foreign Domination o 4.2.4 Domestic Tourism and Malawian Businesses o 4.2.5 Enclave Model
4.3 GOVERNMENT ROLE, PLANNING AND ITS LIMITATIONS o 4.3.1 Planning and Policy o 4.3.2 Budget Problems o 4.3.3 Corruption o 4.3.4 Political Stability
4.4 USE OF LOCAL HUMAN RESOURCES AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION o 4.4.1 Employment o 4.4.2 Community Participation
4.5 NEGATIVE IMPACTS AND COMMUNITY PERCEPTION OF TOURISM o 4.5.1 Community Discontent o 4.5.2 Drug Tourism and Prostitution
4.6 CURRENT STATE OF SUSTAINABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT o 4.6.1 Current Efforts o 4.6.2 Challenges and Future Prospects iv
5. CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………..p. 99
5.1 GENERAL RECCOMENDATIONS
5.2 CONCLUSIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER STUDIES
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….p. 107 APPENDIX 1: Email Questionnaire Format (p. 115) APPENDIX 2: Presentation Email attached to Questionnaire (p. 123) APPENDIX 3: Summary of Responses from the Questionnaire (p. 125) APPENDIX 4: Interview Transcript (p. 131)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the complexion of this work, I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who have helped me and supported me through this research. Special thanks go to all the staff at the DeHaan Institute, whose lecturers have all contributed to stimulate my curiosity towards the science of tourism, with its fascinating challenges and its paradoxes. A special mention goes to my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Robert Lambert, and to Dr. Peter Lyth, who assisted me during the first stage of this project with precious advice. Particularly for the support during the work of research, I would like to thank Mr. Kelly White and Mrs. Laura J. Hands at the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium. Without their practical help, their willingness to answer my questions and the use of the company material, this research would have been impossible to complete. Thanks for having adopted me as part of the company. I am also thankful to all other people and specialists on Malawi and Africa who have contributed to the research. This work is dedicated to my father, Dr. Augusto Fracasso.
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Map of Malawi (p. 7) Figure 2: International tourist arrivals & receipts in Malawi (p. 8) Figure 3: Irregular patterns of growth in the number of visistors to Malawi in percentage points (p. 9) Figure 4: Pictures of the “Warm Heart of Africa”, from the 2011 MTMC’s Malawi brochure (p. 11-12) Figure 5: Departures for Malawi by country of residence, 2000-06 (p. 13) Figure 6: Company logo of MTMC and screen capture of its website (p. 15) Figure 7: Framework that explains development problems for tourism in sub-Saharan destinations despite their potential (p. 24) Figure 8: Structural model of conventional tourism in Third World destinations, organised as an enclave industry by metropolitan economies (p. 26) Figure 9: Distribution of tourist expenditure in the enclave model (p. 27) Figure 10: Seven sustainable development strategies as highlighted by UNWTO (p. 32) Figure 11: Example of how even conservation might perpetuate inequalities: displacement of Maasai (p. 36) Figure 12: Total contribution of travel & tourism to Malawi’s GDP (p. 57) Figure 13: World Economic Forum’s (2009) competitiveness index showing how infrastructures in Malawi constitute a competitive disadvantage for the tourist destination (p. 60) Figure 14: Message referring to a fuel shortage in Malawi during June 2011; such organisational problems occur often and are an obvious interference with tourism development (p. 61)
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Figure 15: Current air connectivity from UK to Malawi (p. 66) Figure 16: Article from ‘The Nation’ (3 May, 2007) praising African Parks’ efforts to improve Majete Reserve (p. 82) Figure 17: Direct contribution of travel & tourism to employment in Malawi (p. 87) Figure 18: List of Wilderness Safaris’ projects throughout Southern Africa (p. 91) Figure 19: Current community projects carried on by the Responsible Safari Company (p. 92) Figure 20: Frames from Youtube videos depicting Europeans in search of Marijuana in Malawi (p. 96)
Table 1: International visitor arrivals (in thousand) by purpose of visit, 2001-07 (p. 13) Table 2: Typologies of community participation in tourism (p. 39) Table 3: Tosun’s (2000) framework indicating the limits to community participation in LDC (p. 42-43) Table 4: Sample list of UK Tour operators selling Malawi (p. 68-69) Table 5: Example of procedure and lack of implementation from the 2006-2011 development strategy (p. 79-80)
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CBNRM…………………………...Community-based Natural Resources Management HR……………………………………Human Resources LDC………………….………………Less Developed Countries MTMC..........................…...Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium MTWC………………..……………Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture UNWTO………….………………..United Nation World Tourism Organisation WTTC……………….……….……..World Travel and Tourism Council
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1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
This introductory section will provide background information on Malawi and its characteristics as a tourism destination. The statement of the problem and the dissertation structure will also be summarised.
1.1 AN OVERVIEW OF MALAWI AND ITS TOURISM INDUSTRY Malawi is a landlocked country situated in the Sub-Saharan region of South East Africa, neighbouring the countries of Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. It is a relatively small (118,484 sq km) but densely populated country of about 15.3 million people (Africa Development Bank, 2011). Like most of the countries of the Sub-Saharan region, it also suffers from very high levels of poverty and other development problems related. It has been estimated that 39% of the population lives in poverty conditions (Mintel, 2009). The 2009 total GDP was US$ 3.3 billion, illiteracy is still frequent (27%) and the country’s life expectancy is 53.8 years (Africa Development Bank, 2011, World Bank, 2011). As a matter of fact, with a GDP per capita (at power purchase parity) of 925 $ in 2010, Malawi can still be considered the 11th poorest country in the world (Global Finance, 2011). The economy of the country is in fact still mainly based on agriculture, which accounts for 31% of the total GDP; in particular,
cultivation of tobacco leaves (Davies, 2003).
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the country is heavily dependent on the
ďƒ¨ Figure 1: Map of Malawi (Mintel, 2009)
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Except for the main centres of Lilongwe (capital city of 500,000 people) and Blantyre (600,000 people, the commercial centre of the country), the country also mainly consists in rural communities and wild areas. Obstacles for further economic development are also: food crisis, high levels of HIV (14.1% of the adult population is infected), malaria and high rates of infant mortality (World Bank, 2011). After its independence from UK in 1964, political problems and despotic rule have also destabilised the country for long, but since 1994 Malawi is governed under a multi-party democracy. This however did not prevent corruption problems in the government until recent times. Despite this problematic scenario, in the last twenty years the country has been able to gradually develop a tourism industry and has attracted travellers in increasing numbers though with sometimes irregular arrival patterns and receiving still a limited amount of tourism spending. As a possible alternative to its dependence on agriculture however, travel and tourism now accounts for 8.0 % of the GDP of the country (WTTC, 2011). ďƒ¨ Figure 2: International tourist arrivals & receipts in Malawi (World Economic Forum, 2009; UNWTO, 2010 )
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ďƒ¨ Figure 3: Irregular patterns of growth in the number of visitors to Malawi in percentage points (Malawi Tourism Report, 2007)
The beauty and intact nature of the landscapes makes the country optimal as a tourist destination. The main asset of the Malawi tourism sector is certainly Lake Malawi, a 580 km long body of water that stretches for almost all the length of the country, covering about one-fifth of the total surface area. It is the third largest lake of all Africa; the southern part has been put under protection since 1980 with the establishment of Lake Malawi National Park and in 1984 it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Columbus, 2011). The lake is basically fresh water but forms a vast inland sea because of its particular geological formation: such origin has also allowed the diversification of a number of fish species and a remarkable number of unique species have been found to be endemic in the lake. For this reason, the lake hosts the largest number of fish species more than any other lake in the world (Douglas and White, 2003). Remarkably, it has also been elected The
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World Most Beautiful Lake in a recent survey conducted by Yahoo Travel in the spring of 2011. As the lake also features sandy beaches, exotic retreats and a habitable island, an array of upmarket lodges and small resorts have been set up around the lake, which also allow visitors to practice a range of water sport activities like snorkelling, scuba diving, canoeing, kayaking, water-ski, boating, yachting, but the quietness of the lake also appeals to honeymoon or relax holidays. The other main attraction of Malawi is clearly the wildlife and nature. A total of 9 National Parks and Wildlife Reserves are present throughout the territory, hosting a great variety of wild animals such as zebras, hippos, elephants, rhinos, leopards, buffalos, antelopes, crocodiles, monkeys and others. Birdlife is also an important asset which is increasingly attracting birdwatchers. Lions are present, but in very small numbers and also for this reason Malawi is not fully able to contend with other classic safari destinations like Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia. However, Malawi’s large uncontaminated areas still allow adventure travel: hiking, rock climbing, excursions, cycling trails in the wild are available. In fact the particular topography of the country, influenced by the Great Rift Valley formation, offers high plateaus alternating to large green valleys in a relatively small territory, making the landscape particularly attractive to adventure tourists. Culture and colonial heritage are also present, though these arguably do not constitute primary attractions. Yet one of the distinctive features that is often emphasised by visitors is the particular friendliness of people and locals, which gained the country the nickname of “Warm Heart of Africa�, used now also as a slogan to promote the destination.
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Figure 4: Pictures of the “Warm Heart of Africa”, from the 2011 MTMC’s Malawi brochure
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In brief, this small developing nation is not yet able to compete with other “giantsâ€? of African tourism like Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Namibia, Tanzania, and other small exotic African island destination like Seychelles Islands or Mauritius. According to international analysts in fact, the country only ranks 117 out of 133 world countries for tourism competitiveness (World Economic Forum, 2009). Nonetheless, the country is in the process of positioning itself as a niche ecotourism destination, aiming to attract an increasing clientele of high spenders, particularly Europeans. Currently, the key segments for tourism are the adults and the elderly from the European markets, in particular UK, though in terms of visitors numbers the neighbouring country (Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe) still produce the majority of non-leisure travellers. ďƒ¨ Figure 5: Departures for Malawi by country of residence, 2000-06 (Malawi Tourism Report, 2007)
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In terms of age groups, 45-59 years olds account for 38%, 25-44 years old for about 32%, over 60s for 17.5 % of the total visitors number (Malawi Government Report, 2007). In addition, the country is also a popular stopover among young backpackers to Africa and large numbers of visitors reach Malawi also on voluntary projects, making voluntary tourism an important invoice for the travel industry. Still, business travel seems to be the main motivation to visit Malawi (48.9% of visitors), though this regards mostly Africans nationals, while leisure travel accounts only for 26.3%, with mostly European visitors. This data also highlights the problem of marketing Malawi as an international holiday destinations (Mintel, 2009). ďƒ¨ Table 1: International visitors arrivals (in thousand) by purpose of visit, 2001-07 (Mintel, 2009)
Purpose of visit
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
71
101
112
95
114
168
188
144
206
209
208
227
312
349
Other
51
76
103
124
96
158
177
Total
266
383
424
427
438
638
714
Holiday Business
Despite the latent potential, the numbers of holidaymakers is still low and access, infrastructural and institutional problems are weaknesses for the development of the industry. One fundamental problem is indeed foreign access, as there is currently a lack of direct flight from Europe, Malawi’s most strategic market for growth. British Airways, Air France, KLM and Lufthansa offered direct links to the country in the late 90s, but all 12
gradually retreated by the beginning of the 2000 because of a lack of profits. As a result the tourism industry of Malawi stagnated for a short period until 2005, before resuming growth. But this issue still puts pressure on the targeting of Europeans, who still today have to embark on lengthy and expensive flights (typically Ethiopia Airlines or Kenya Airways) before reaching the destination. As a further general problem, the status of infrastructures is still a problem. Management and support also lacks from the government side. The Malawian Ministry of Tourism was founded in 1995 but was initially active under the Ministry of Information; after 1997 Parks and Wildlife was added to the Ministry responsibilities, which finally led to the formation of the current Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture (Mintel, 2009). In the years this institution has shown little efforts to the improvement of tourism in general, while it has been more active on the front of conservation. Website and basic information services also lack of accuracy and the marketing activity is almost inexistent.
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1.1.1 The Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium (MTMC)
Arguably also the reasons explained above the private sector, essentially all the businesses that seek international customers, are now marketing themselves through a private UKbased organization, the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium. This company works both as a International Tourist Information Office, offering information and advice on Malawi to visitors from all over the world, but it also promotes the country as a whole and the single consortium members (e.g. lodges, inbound operators, car rental and transport companies)
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by producing and posting brochures and travel information packages to privates and tour operators. Since its foundation in 2002, the Consortium has established very good links with the tourism trade, maintaining contacts with all the international outbound operators willing to offer travels to Malawi from all over the world. Therefore the MTMC can be well considered the most important organisation currently marketing tourism to Malawi and its website, www.malawitourism.com, is the most completed available on the web. ďƒ¨ Figure 6: Company logo of MTMC and screen capture of its website
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY As it has emerged clearly, Malawi is a poor developing country that is in the challenge of developing a sustainable yet profitable ecotourism industry that could generate more wealth in the country’s economy. This dissertation thesis will analyse the structure and organisation of the Malawi tourism industry, in an attempt to gain a wider understanding on the phenomenon of tourism in the least developed countries, with particular reference with the less developed African nations. 14
The work has been organised in four chapters that will follow this introduction. First, a literature review will underline the most important issues concerning the topic and will make a brief review of various theoretical frameworks. Here the focus will be on the following issues. Initial debates on tourism as a panacea for overall development in the developing world will first be presented. In particular, the dependency paradigm and the enclave tourism model has well acknowledged how often international tourism has contradictory effects on LDC and might perpetuate dependencies on the most developed economies. In the recent years though, disputes on sustainability and alternative tourism development have also exalted the role tourism can have to reduce poverty, particularly in African destinations. In particular, community participation has been recognised as a fundamental step to be taken, but in the case of Africa this has shown different outcomes and challenges. The third section of this paper will analyse the methodology employed in the research. The researcher has engaged actively with the MTMC in order to obtain contacts and primary data. Through the support of the company, an email questionnaire has been sent out to the tourism business of Malawi and interviews have also been carried out with experts. A fourth section will discuss on the results of the research. Six issues have been recognised to be relevant: general state of development, structure and ownership of the industry, government role, use of local workforce and community participation, negative impacts and discontent and implications for sustainability. These will offer a picture of the current situation of Malawi’s progresses in tourism. A final conclusion will offer some recommendations to sustain the future development in reference to the current challenges. Conclusive remarks will point out how 15
despite past problems, Malawi is developing tourism well, thanks to the management and activities carried out by the private sector and businesses. If tourism development will continue to be assisted by other sectors of the economy, it will be argued that its benefits will be concrete and determinant to help the country to improve its economic situation.
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2. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
This section will offer a review of theoretical issues useful to understand the phenomenon of tourism in the less developed economies and its controversies, with particular reference to African countries. This will provide the background to contextualise the objectives and results of the present research.
2.1 DEBATES ON THE BENEFITS OF TOURISM IN THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES In the last decades a vast body of literature has been produced on the broader issue of tourism and development in the developing economies. At its early stages and until 1960s, tourism was unconditionally heralded as a unconditional generator of development and an engine for small developing economies (Cater, 1987). However during the mid-1970s debates emerged on the controversy of such belief, as theory and practice began to show that, particularly in the less developing countries, formerly known also as “Third World�, tourism often disappointed, or rather underperformed, as a tool for the local economic development (Turner and Ash, 1975, in Mowforth and Munt, 2009). A seminal study conducted by Britton (1982) provided some first conceptual explanations on the contradictions of the political economy of tourism in the Third World. Focusing his research particularly on developing islands of the South Pacific like the Fiji islands, Britton argued how the structural limits of third world economies meant that the benefits from international tourism would rather remain within the global enterprises located in the developed economies. Thus, the hosting community becomes entangled in a global tourism 17
network managed by metropolitan enterprises, where it receives only limited benefits as both demand and supply of tourism are controlled by the developed economies where “foreign tourism companies also monopolize industrial managerial expertise, marketing skills, financial resources” (ibid., p.339). Rather than a fast track to development, the resulting outcome was an increasing divergence between poor and rich, economic dependency on the developed world and in connection with these issues, various social tensions. Similarly, Mathieson and Wall (1982) argued that tourism can make the most of its positive economic impact on a Third World country only in its early stages and will then gradually lose significance with the emergence of industrialisation. The authors also suggested that for small developing economies overreliance on the tourism industry constitute a major problem, to be avoided by reinvesting the generated profits in other sectors of the national economy, to attain a wider development. Such critical views were supported by a large following of researchers who highlighted various drawbacks of the management of the international tourism industry in LDC (Britton and Clarke, 1987; Harrison, 1992; Lea, 1988). Once the argument was set, literature on tourism in the poor developing economies multiplied, again underlining the limits of tourism as engine for development and offering recommendations for the development of “alternative tourism”, where communities and local economies could receive more benefits (Brown, 1998). Africa in particular became the focus of the debates in various debates. Dieke (2000) comprehensively reviewed the political economy of tourism in different African countries like Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Tanzania, Eritrea and the mixed results derived from this industry. 18
Debates have now generally concluded that tourism is not an absolute panacea to solve the multiple development problems of the Third World countries; yet, if managed sustainably, tourism can certainly have positive effects in improving effectively the economy of underdeveloped countries (Cater, 1995, in Scheyvens, 2002). Potentially, tourism is an acknowledged generator of welfare: it redistributes wealth, it has backward linkages with other industries, it often use natural infrastructures and can have comparatively low startup costs (Telfer and Sharpley, 2008). It allows the host country to receive foreign expenditure, it promotes the implementation of infrastructures and services, it improves the balance of payments, the rehabilitation of remote or marginal areas previously underdeveloped, it creates of jobs and training opportunities, it can bring social and cultural regeneration to a destination, and the possibility to conserve certain habitats by allowing travellers to pay for visits (Pearce, 1989; Scheyvens, 2002). An increase in the gross national product occurs also through the so-called “multiplier effect� that occurs after investments in tourism, consisting in direct, indirect and induced effects that tourists expenditure spread creating multiple economic earning that can positively impact on the whole country economy (Lea, 1988). A small but relevant part of this money flows also becomes government revenue thanks to taxes and duties. However, if these concepts have proofed to be certainly valid even for second tier world economies, researchers have shown that for many African countries, among the poorest in the world, this paradigm tends in part to lose validity to the extent that the negative factors might minimise the originally beneficial forces of tourism (O’Grady, 1981, in Brown, 1998). In Africa, foreign manpower is often the norm, for instance. In the past, because of import leakages, Gambia was attested to retain only 10% of tourism profits,
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while Tanzania 40% (Cater, 1987). In such sub-Saharan countries therefore, even employment benefits remain limited to low-skilled labour and even when it occurs wages are typically low.
2.1.1 Tourism Impacts and Negative Factors Potentially Amplified in the LDC
As a whole, the various impacts tourism development can have are classified as economic, socio-cultural and environmental (Mowforth and Munt, 2009). As it will later be pointed out, a sustainable tourism development advocates the sensitive impact of these same three pillars on the destination environment and community. But because of their fragile economic, political and social structure, LDC countries can easily see the potential benefits of tourism lose effects and the following factors underline this contradiction (Pearce, 1989):
Leakage of tourism expenditure: often great part of the foreign expenditures is mainly retained by big corporations located in the developed world which organise the holiday (ex. Foreign airline, Foreign tour operator and travel agent, accommodation of foreign ownership)
Developed economies are the ones that typically generate tourists, who purchase the travel from their home country
Purchase of an all-inclusive formula: less direct spending in the hosting community (linked with less confidence with the destination too)
Economic dependency and other development problems:
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Materials are imported from developed country: tourism businesses have to rely on imports and foreign companies to build and operate high-class tourist facilities, as the host country often lacks in industrial development.
Expatriate staff (locals are unable to be trained or offer service at an international standard)
Additional costs of outsourcing and imports will also leak out of the hosting economy (e.g. oversea training of staff, promotion abroad, interest on payments, high foreign exchange costs of tourism facilities)
Lack of infrastructures like road connections and fundamental local tourist amenities (like restaurants or shops) means tourists are often segregated in tourist villages and enclave resorts
Benefits are not evenly distributed throughout the population but go to an elite of businesses and organisations (Cater, 1987)
Isolation of local communities: e.g. because of infectious diseases and health safety, contact with locals could also be discouraged (Mowforth and Munt, 2009)
Foreign spending can create inflationary pressures on the host community (Cater, 1987)
Environmental damages, ex. deforestation, water pollution, which in poor agricultural economies might further destabilise the economy of the host community
Social issues (commodification and globalisation of local culture, growing discontent of locals)
Social exclusion of locals from tourism spots (including the forced dislocation of communities) and negative influence on traditional way of life (Pearce, 1989)
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Weak government support to plan tourism, or centralised government-owned structures and transportation service which are typically weak and uncompetitive
Multinational companies that expanded in many Sub-Saharan countries, which have almost monopolistic power (Brown, 1998)
Political problems or corruption prevent government planning and promotion of tourism and discourage tourists (Poirier, 2000)
Disruption in the wildlife and pressure on the local ecosystem (Cater, 1987)
Brohman (1996, p. 48) also summarises this dark side of tourism as a phenomenon that brings “foreign domination and dependency, socioeconomic and spatial polarization, environmental destruction, cultural alienation, and the loss of social control and identity among host communities”. In such context particularly the Sub-Saharan countries of Africa have been the ones to suffer from development drawbacks, which have in most cases prevented the flourishing of their latent tourism potential. Ankomah and Crompton (1990) have identified five main inhibitors of tourism development in these countries: negative image as a holiday destination circulated by adverse media coverage; constraints to earn foreign exchange, lack of skilled manpower, weak institutional support for planning tourism development and political instability. These were mostly the results of an unfavourable historical legacy made of colonial wars, internal civil conflicts and military coups. These increasingly cut off the countries from the global tourism development and constitute a loss in opportunities as travel destinations. Figure 7 (next page): Framework that explains development problems for tourism in sub-Saharan destinations despite their potential (Ankomah and Crompton, 1990)
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The following section will analyse a possible theoretical framework that can be used to explain and analyse this distorted model of tourism in the least developed countries and in Africa, drawing more details particular reference on issues such as foreign dependency and leakage.
2.2 DEPENDENCY THEORY AND THE ENCLAVE TOURISM MODEL IN THE LDC The so-called “dependency theory” originated during the 1960s and 70s to describe and explain the unequal and distorted structure of Third World economies (Frank, 1966; Lea, 1988). This theory emerged in contrast with the Modernization paradigm of the 50s and late 60s, proposing that “underdevelopment results not from the particular socio-economic characteristic of less-developed countries (as suggested by modernization theory) but from the external and internal political, economic and institutional structures that keep them in a dependent position relative to developed countries […] limiting developmental opportunities within less developed countries” (Telfer and Sharpeley, 2008, p. 13). This “process of historical conditioning […] alters the internal functioning of economic and social 23
sub-systems within an underdeveloped country” and therefore “involves the subordination of national economic autonomy to meet the interests of foreign pressure groups and privileged local classes” (Britton, 1982, p.333-4). According to such definitions therefore, underdevelopment was caused by a subtle form of neo-colonialism exercised by developed countries, from which many developing countries showed dependency (Telfer and Sharpley, 2008). This was also an inevitable effect of neoliberal approaches that emerged in development studies, which advocated an outward-oriented model of growth (external help) rather than inward-oriented for LDC (Brohman, 1998). In the context of tourism, this paradigm has also been successfully applied to tourism development, particularly in relation to the issue of foreign ownership and the enclave tourism model (Britton, 1982; Matthews, 1977). Many LDC have in fact shown to be dependent on foreign wealthy countries for tourism demand, operational means and sometimes also infrastructures (Oppermann and Chon, 1997). As there is often almost a lack of domestic tourism, tourism is organised as an almost closed enclave industry. The tourism enclave model was hence described basically as a form of tourism “concentrated in remote areas in which the types of facilities and their physical location fail to take into consideration the needs and wishes of surrounding communities” (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996, in Mbaiwa, 2005, p. 159). Other characteristics are: imports of capital goods, indirect imports, transfers of foreign exchange to developed countries, since tourists typically purchase package tours inclusive of flights, accommodations, meals from abroad. As a result, the tourists’ contribution to the destinations economy is limited only to transfers, souvenirs, meals and entertainment outside the resort. 24
ďƒ¨ Figure 8: Structural model of conventional tourism in Third World destinations, organised as an enclave industry by metropolitan economies (Britton, 1982)
Similarly, locals have practically neither financial nor social access to the goods and services available in these enclaves, and substantial part of the tourism earning will be almost expropriated from the host community. Lack of interaction between foreign investors and local people will also generate an elite-controlled tourism (Mbaiwa, 2005). Majority of tourism originate from the industrialised centres, and this clearly affects the structure of the industry. Such enclave organisation clearly tends to minimise the actual positive impact of
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tourism in the developing poor country and has remarkably poor linkages with the local economy (Freitag, 1994). Figure 9: Distribution of tourist expenditure in the enclave model (Britton, 1982)
In addition, even if small local tourism companies start to develop, these will be completely overcome by foreign competition (Britton, 1982). In conclusion, “the international tourist industry, because of the commercial power held by foreign enterprises, imposes on peripheral destinations a development mode which reinforces dependency on, and vulnerability to, developed countries. […] This situation results in tourists at a destination being channelled within that commercial apparatus controlled by large-scale foreign and national enterprises which dominate the industry, the greatest commercial gains therefore go to foreign and local elite interests” (ibid., p. 355) In the context of Africa, Mbaiwa’ s study (2005) applied the dependency paradigm to the case study of the Okavasngo Delta in Botswana: results revealed some socio-economic 26
disadvantages and on the whole tourism in the area did not carry benefits for rural economic development and neither helped to alleviate poverty. Tourism demand showed high dependency on foreign tourist and also ownership showed that foreign companies owned most facilities, travels were organised by foreign western operators and community involvement was weak. For such reasons the enclave tourism model, also in reference to LDC in the SubSaharan region, has prompted researchers to define tourism as “internal colonialism” (Drakakis Smith and Williams, 1983; Palmer, 1994). Tourism development in LDC can be in fact defined as the results of power relationships: Mowforth and Munt (2009, p.53) defined tourism as a state of “domination” with a parallel between tourism and colonialism: “the characteristic of First World ownership of much Third World tourism infrastructures and the origin of tourists from the First World have for many become an irresistible analogy of colonial and imperial domination”.
2.2.1 Globalisation and Conventional Tourism
Debates and critics on the suitability of tourism exacerbated by enclave tourism is also related to the wider issue of globalisation of tourism business. Despite its obvious incidence in the cultural sphere of a destination, where it causes a general homogenisation of the cultural habits, globalisation of tourism markets can also be seen as the force behind the development of international tourism business. In today’s business there is an “increasing interdependence of markets and production in different countries through trade in goods and services, cross-border flows of capital, international strategic alliances, cooperations,
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mergers and exchanges of technology” (Vesna, 2005, p. 33). In the tourism business, this process prompts international groups to operate on a larger scale, often trying to integrate themselves with other sector of the industry, while small-scale and local operators are taken over (Harrison, 2000). Therefore big enterprises from the metropolitan powers often acquire hotel and transportation in order to provide western type of services in developing countries with an assured potential for tourism. In small underdeveloped countries, which do not own a national airline, oligopoly of air travel is also enjoyed by airlines of the developed world as part of their foreign control on the destination. In such economies, the tourism industry often tends to consist of big groups vertically integrated, which have oligopolistic control on the local destination. According to Cater (1993, p.86), “It has been estimated that the proportion of a total inclusive tour price retained locally drops to only 22-25% if both the airline and hotel used are foreign owned”. For instance, further evidence from African case studies showed in the past that in Kenya British Airways also invested in hotels and accommodation; in the same country Thompson controlled air transport (Britannia Airways Limited), hotels (Thomson Overseas Developments Limited) and distribution networks (45 sales outlets with Lunn Poly Agency Limited) (Lea, 1988). Ownership by multinational enterprises is clearly the biggest threat to fragile economies, as these companies are often reluctant to abandon their standardised management model that can assure economy of scale (Brown, 1998). On the other hand, it is also the national government that easily allow this to happen, offering favourable tax policies to attract investments. Therefore as Brown’s paper (1998) has argued, conventional forms of tourism development are often not suitable for extremely poor countries like most of the African nations. The idea of a more responsible management of tourism, which could
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be managed to impact positively also on fragile economies, brings us to briefly discuss the idea of sustainable tourism development.
2.3 – NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT: SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE LDC AND IN AFRICA With increasing pressure on the illusionary benefits tourism of tourism in LDC, the 1980s and 90s have seen a growing need for a new concept of a sustainable form of tourism development in contrast with mass tourism and the enclave model. Origins of the idea of green tourism however go back to various authors since the 60s (De Kadt, 1979; Krippendorf, 1987; Mathieson and Wall, 1982; Murphy, 1985; Young, 1973). In recent history, the concept of sustainability gradually gained momentum after the issuing of the World Conservation Strategy by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in 1980; but it was the 1987 release of ‘Our Common Future’ report by the World Commission on Environment (Brutland Commission) for the United Nations General Assembly that start to set the debate (Inskeep, 2000). The problem of univocally define the concept soon attracted the interest of researchers, policy-makers and organisations. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (known as Earth Summit) held in 1992 in Rio De Janeiro, the notion of sustainable development was elaborated creating the Agenda 21 (ibid.). This was used by UNWTO and the World Travel and Tourism Council and the Earth Council to apply sustainable development to the tourism and travel industry, which calls for a responsible form of “tourism which leads to
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management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems� (UNWTO, WTTC and The Earth Council, 1995, in Inskeep, 2000, p.78). Possibly a more complete definition is the one later given by Khan (1997, p. 990): “ecodevelopment promotes the use of indigenous knowledge, material, and labour. Use of local expertise and labour is financially beneficial to the community and creates stronger multiplier effect as opposed to leakage due to import of expertise and labour. Moreover, this resists unlimited foreign investments and puts a cap on economic, sociocultural, and environmental carrying capacity. By emphasizing local lifestyles, values, and economic well-being of the local community, ecotourism promotes local identity, pride, and self-accomplishment. By empowering the community through local participation, ecotourism also creates an opportunity for a self-generating tourism as opposed to capitalistic control of mass tourism.� Certainly with the passing of time, definitions and theoretical frameworks on sustainable tourism development further complicated the debates. Many, like Mannion (1992, in Tosun and Jenkins, 1998), also took a critical position asserting that there is a lack of precise practical guidelines, as what is sustainable tourism can change in destinations over place and time. Nonetheless, as it strictly regards a sustainable management of tourism, researchers have increasingly proposed solutions to both at a national and institutional level and also for small-scale operative projects. Buzzwords as alternative tourism, green tourism and ecotourism, in contrast with mass and conventional tourism have also increasingly been related to African countries and other developing regions in the world (Scheyvens, 2002). If alternative tourism projects often call for small-scale tourism
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projects, minimising cultural and environmental damages and giving priority to the needs of the host community, this is clearly a challenge in those African communities with extremely low living standards. This new form of tourism should therefore attempt also to focus on education rather than consumption and function primarily as a mean to conserve habitats and cultures (Mawfoth and Munt, 2009). This in turn generated increasing efforts in propoor tourism, a sustainable management of tourism that can be also used as a driving development strategy to reduce poverty in LDC (Mitchell and Ashley, 2010). Also the UNWTO has been in first line to emphasise this new important focus of tourism by circulating reports, recommendations and guidelines from international conferences (UNWTO, 2004). ďƒ¨ Figure 10: Seven sustainable development strategies as highlighted by UNWTO (2006, in Gartner, 2008)
Despite these efforts, past researchers haven’t fully agreed on the applicability of sustainability in Third World and African countries. For example, Cater (1993) has highlighted the three following observations on sustainable tourism in LDC: 1) Tourism should meet the needs of the hosting population in the short term and alleviating poverty levels in the long term; however the organisation of international 31
tourism can make it difficult to locals to access this structure (oligopolistic forces by western enterprises and foreign investments, inflation that hits land prices, high costs unaffordable by communities). 2) Ecotourism destinations should be able to respond to a growing demand of tourists, but this growth must be sustained and ecotourism has been growing rapidly; also there are debates on the true environmental awareness of the so-called eco-tourists, who often have a demand for services and infrastructure which little differs from conventional tourists. 3) Tourism should conserve the environment to guarantee the first two aims to sustain themselves; but this can be very costly to developing countries. Previously unspoiled areas become the main focus of ecotourism and this can make them more vulnerable to tourism impact. It is important therefore “the recognition that, without adequate understanding of underlying factors and careful planning and management, ecotourism [in the Third World] may include unsustainable aspects.� (ibid., p.85) From a similar perspective, Tosun and Jenkins (1998) in particular have criticised the traditional sustainable approaches to tourism planning as being ineffective for LDC, where continuous adaptations to standard practices are strongly needed to meet the specific demand of the hosting populations. Besides the stimulation of community participation and decision-making, which will be later discussed in greater depth, an integrated approach is strongly needed to allow comprehensive planning to reduce poverty: inputs and coordination from different sectors of the destination’s local economy and culture should
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coexist within the travel industry. Thus, to avoid an enclave tourism effect, “any tourism development plan has to be integrated into the nation’s socio-economic and political policies, into the natural and man-made environment, into the socio-cultural traditions, into the related sectors of the economy and its financial schemes, and into the international tourism markets” (Baud-Bovy and Lawson, 1982, p. 308). Such approach requires careful long-term planning that can be flexible and adapt to changes in the host environment; truly a challenge in LDC because “in the Third world whose immediate and short-term needs are pressing, the concept [sustainable development] rests uneasily with the need for long-term planning for the tourism sector: the forces of pragmatism may be stronger than those of idealism” (Tosun and Jenkins, 1998, p.103). Understandably, sustainability has emerged among developed countries with high standard of living, while poor countries need to obtain immediate benefits for their economy, often without precautions for long-term sustainability. In standard practice in fact, planning in Africa and LDC is typically carried out by foreign planners and international agencies which use standardise approaches; often multinational enterprise dictate on planning, governments often fail to privatise and there is an overall lack of coordination between private and public sector (Tosun and Jenkins, 1998). Hence, researchers have concluded that a standardised approach is not suitable, but solutions must be shaped on a destination’s specific needs and socio-political and economic structure, while they should also commit to train local expertise and indigenous tourism planners. Supports from funding agencies and organisations such as United Nations Development Programme, World Bank affiliates and UNWTO are also concrete opportunities to finance sustainable projects (ibid.). 33
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2.3.1 Responses to Sustainability in African Destinations
In the practice of tourism business, efforts to accomplish ecotourism projects for poverty reduction and the use of tourism as a sustainable development strategy have shown mixed results, sometimes with success stories limited to particular local areas rather than entire countries and outcomes varied accordingly. In Kenya for instance, tourism has very well capitalized on a long-established tradition for conservation through its National Parks and wildlife reserves, positioning itself as perhaps the most competitive Safari destination. However this soon created problems and further pressure on sustainable development, with intensifying problems such as: infrastructural limitations, biodiversity degradation, political insecurity and violence, uneven access to tourism benefits among communities, high degree of foreign ownership and management, underdevelopment of domestic tourism though substantial potential (Sindiga, 2000). Here the controversial
displacement of the Maasai tribes led by First World
conservationists to leave space for National Parks and further tourism development, which occurred also in Tanzanian territory, can well represent how the problem of sustainability and has attracted much critics in the country (Mowforth and Munt, 2009). Evidences form the Kenya tourism industry has finally confirmed that an extremely successful tourism industry can easily coexist with high levels of poverty in the local population (Ndubano, 2000, in Mbaiwa, 2005). ďƒ¨ Figure 11 (next page): Example of how even conservation might perpetuate inequalities: displacement of Maasai (Mowforth and Munt, 2009, p.263)
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Different was the case of Ghana, which received far less attention as a tourist destination. In spite of this, the local tourism industry has recently been quickly reactive in approaching ideas of sustainable development for tourism. In the recent years implementation of tourism planning occurred thanks to the Integrated Tourism Development Programme, a much more comprehensive planning strategy that have allowed sustainability to emerge as a practice (Inskeep, 2000). This programme saw the involvement of the Ghana Ministry of Tourism to help the implementation of strategies and assisted marketing programmes, financial planning and a number of important institutional accomplishments. Communitybased tourism has being developed and it has been allowed training to recruit workforce for long-time strategies.
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Eritrea instead showed a rather slow and problematic tourism development. The country reached independence from Ethiopia only in 1991 after decades of conflicts and this had clearly prevented previous growth. Burns (2000) analysed conflicting approaches that emerged in the moment of planning tourism during the 90s. Proposed alternative planning developed as a halfway compromise between the realities of international tourism systems and community-based tactics, to sustain the emerging industry to the three concepts of participation, democracy and pluralism. On Zanzibar Island in Tanzania, in the past there also have been efforts towards sustainability and ecotourism to fight dependence on agriculture. Given the island fragile ecosystem subjected, results have been mixed. There have been problems in balancing environment conservation and business exploitation (Khatib, 2000). Community participation and benefit sharing projects have taken place, in particular with reference to the successful project in Jozani Forest Reserve, where the Forest Department management has pursue sustainable projects that indicate the way for the conservation of other reserve areas (ibid.). A Commission of Natural Resources has also been established in collaboration with the organisation CARE Tanzania, but there are still struggles due the island small size, pressing demand and the control from operators (ibid.). In the small country of Rwanda, a remarkable accomplishment was the Mountain Gorilla Projects, started as early as 1970s, a successful small-scale and ecologically sensitive operation. The project created self-sustainable gorilla-watching ecotourism, which helped to improve the conservation of the species that was steadily declining (Mowforth and Munt, 2009). Since then the number of species has successfully increased.
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In Zimbabwe, the CAMPFIRE project is also relevant for discussing alternative tourism development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project was started in 1989, with the basic aim to gradually transfer ownership and management of tourism from the national Zimbabwean government to the local communities, passing from open access and exploitation of resources to a locally regulated system with rights of exclusion (Sinclair and Park, 2000). Charges and quotas were introduced for game viewing, regulations have been applied to wildlife reserves and also external resources like foreign donors have also helped to generate income. These have been good examples of how an economic policy instrument was used to improve conservation and how tourism brought consistent economic benefits to the local communities (Sinclair and Pack, 2000). Certainly, community participation and the involvement and stimulation of local businesses are fundamental pillars to develop a sustainable tourism approach. Yet, this still constitute a great challenge for poor developing economies of sub-Saharan Africa. The next section will look at this issue.
2.4 COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AND THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA The lack of skilled and well-trained personnel to manage tourism is one of the cardinal problems of tourism development in Africa as highlighted by existing literature (Ankomah, 1991, Tosun, 2000; Tosun, 2005). High levels of poverty, health problems and lack of literacy and education clearly make sustainable community-based tourism truly questionable for many Sub-African economies and are arguably the main constraint that slow down tourism
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development (Jenkins, 1997, in Dieke, 2001). As a result the tourism industry of such countries shows high rates of expatriate staff. According to a much more beneficial role of tourism, there should be empowerment and participation of local people, who should then be included in the ownership and management structure of the industry. ďƒ¨ Table 2: Typologies of community participation in tourism (Ashley and Roe, 1998)
Dieke’s (2001) study well illustrates the problem of managing human resources in subSaharan Africa. Besides the shortage of highly skilled labour, technical skills are hard to acquire in such areas and very few locals are able to develop a full career in the industry. Remuneration remains low and employment of locals is mostly focused on part-time/casual basis and unskilled labour, also subjected to seasonality. Other frequent problems include: random recruitment, lack of supervision and quality control to raise the standards and lack of evolution in training from low-skills to high-skills. Lack of managerial and administrative 38
staff creates further problems for tourism in most of Africa and the estimated need of staff is still not met (Dieke, 2001). In answer to these problems, tourism policies and planning should also play an important role in allowing the local HR to follow a country’s pace of tourism development. Training programmes should be designed and improved to gradually develop a workforce independent from foreign help: “it is increasingly necessary to estimate and plan the human resource component, integrate it in the sector’s general development plan, and consider it not as a consequence of a chosen policy, but prior condition for the attainment of objectives” (ibid., p. 73). Still today there is a pressing need for HR development programmes to upgrade Africa’s tourism and services to allow it to compete at truly international standards. There have been efforts to establish training centres and programmes for tourism throughout Africa, including national training centres and institutions. However the distribution of these on the territory is still irregular and depends on regional levels of development; also such schools offering mostly diplomas are often limited to the hotel sector and the level of training is poor. Dieke (2001) recommends that the systems needs to be improved and uniformed. More cooperation between sub-Saharan countries for overall tourism training and education is needed and a comprehensive association of training centres should be established, to become also a meeting place for managers and experts on Africa and to help managing and retaining the local senior staff once it is formed: “unless Africa takes concrete steps to develop its own home-grown personnel, it will be increasingly forced to continue to rely on international help to support its tourism development efforts – a situation surely against the broad principles of self-reliance and self-sustainability and the view that Africa’s 39
future should be in Africa’s hands” (ibid., p. 62). Hence, the development of human resources is a key step to reduce dependency on imported staff and expatriates. Efforts to promote community participation, as part of the stakeholders theory, should however not be limited to the employment of locals. Tourism strategies for overall poverty reduction should be able to advocate community involvement since the planning stages and then create a long-term expansion of other sectors of local economies linked with tourism. Many development experts have wished for a form of community-led tourism. As a matter of fact, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has become an accustomed tactic in development studies on less developed countries and a wellrecognised practice. The term has gained recognition gradually but the concept has always been in support of the fact that “communities, defined by their tight spatial boundaries of jurisdiction and responsibilities, by their distinct and integrated social structure and common interests, can manage their natural resources in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable way” (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1942). Blaikie (2006) has also argued however, that CBNRM has rapidly become a popular policy strategy despite controversial and disappointing outcomes. Though the practice certainly attracts support from international funding institutions, evidence from case studies in Botswana and Malawi itself revealed that the management of natural resources, (of particular relevance for the travel industry considering the ecotourism development of these countries) conducted by local communities has sometimes failed, to the extent that it has become unpopular between communities themselves in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the procedures still require policy reforms and further study. An appraise of destinations’ characteristic and their political structure and organisation has to be carefully taken into 40
account, like in the case of Malawi, which has experienced years of dictatorship, unlike Botswana. In the all sub-Saharan area however, problems of corruption have been indicated as possible obstacles to CBNRM. On the whole however, problems are usually connected with wrong assumptions and inaccurate analysis, “failure to understand the existing management arrangements often results in inept attempts to territorialize common property jurisdictions”; thus, CBNRM can easily become a Trojan horse and “in the guise of decentralized management and greater autonomy in decision making, outside institutions can provide openings and opportunities for new entrepreneurs both from within the community and outside” (ibid., p. 1953). As a result, community empowerment is not a guaranteed accomplishment. In the case of Malawi, illegal cutting of trees in the National Park was worsened by community-based management; the same was documented in the fishery industry, were CBNRM actually worsened the problem of overfishing in Lake Malawi. Community participation in the tourism development process of Third World countries should therefore be considered carefully. Tosun (2000) has elaborated the following framework which highlights limitations to be considered in pursuing communitybased tourism. Three are the fundamental limitations present: at an operational level in the industry of tourism; structural limitation, in participatory tourism and cultural limitations within the hosting communities. Table 3: Tosun’s (2000) framework indicating the limits to community participation in LDC 1) Limitations at the operational level
a) Centralisation of public administration of tourism vs. decentralisation required for community involvement b) Poor of co-ordination between the internal
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sectors of the tourism industry, planning bodies and communities c) Weak information network for peripheral communities 2) Structural limitations of Industry and State
a) Tourism professionals as a closed-community: reluctant to participatory efforts b) Lack of technical expertise to pursue community participation c) Recent democratisation, configured as an Elitedominated management of power and resources d) Weak legal system to protect the communities interests e) Human resources and training problem f) High costs of community participation also in terms of expertise and time management g) Limited financial resources
3) Cultural limitations in the community
a) Poor communities have limitations in their ability to handle tourism business b) General apathy and unawareness in poor communities can increase negative effects of tourism
From an operational point of view, tourism in LDC requires centralisation of the public administration to attain comprehensive policy and planning of tourism. In contrast, community participation requires instead a degree of decentralization and autonomy given to peripheral powers: the two perspectives might contrast. In addition, the fragmented and un-coordinated structure of the tourism industry can prevent and slow down the empowerment of communities hosting tourism. A poor information network and tourism data in LDC also tends to isolate communities from participatory tourism development. Therefore most of the bodies responsible for planning and implementation of tourism development are often inaccessible for the indigenous people.
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As regards factors related to structural limitations which hinder collective planning, Tosun presents seven connected sub-issues (see graph above). Tourism professionals, reluctant to include local people and accept participatory development (external to their habitat), are often not persuaded to change approach. The same happens from a wider political perspective: many LDC have clearly little experience as democratic rule and display an elitist political class that influences the management of the state resources, and community reinforcement remains only theoretical and closed to outsiders. On this similar level, a weak legal system has also been included among structural problems of LDC, since it can only poorly preserve the local communities’ interests. As regards HR, the issue has already been discussed. Ultimately, high costs of community participation for LDC in terms of time, skills, expertise and resources makes it a relatively unattractive option for many planners and practitioners and the outcomes might not stand the efforts, while limited financial resources is a final natural problem indicated that prevents community planning to be realised satisfactorily. Third and final set of limitations come from cultural problems in the Third World, where particularly poor/rural communities might be unable to handle tourism development and organise a business-like management of leisure. Apathy and low levels of awareness might also mean that tourism and visitor management can easily spiral out of control, with a focus on short-term financial gains and cultural damage rather than sustainability. In brief, community participation should certainly be encouraged in terms of sustainability and development, but particularly at its early stages it requires a careful appraisal of costs and benefits in the habitats where it takes places, considering the various
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implications for a certain destination. Continuous monitoring by tourism planners is needed to verify its effective impacts for the genuine evolution of the local communities.
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3. CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The present research aims to depart from the conceptual background illustrated in the previous section to gain an overview on the structure and organisation of the tourism industry of Malawi and the implications for present and future development. This chapter will examine the specific objectives of the research and the methodology employed to obtain the data.
3.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The purpose of this research is to shed light on the following issues concerning the tourism industry of Malawi:
General state of development of the tourism industry
Conditions of tourism infrastructures; general patterns of foreign investments in Malawi tourism
Structure and ownership of tourism businesses (also in relation to issues such as: oligopoly, foreign domination, enclave tourism, trends and patterns of development, integration and power relations between businesses)
Government planning activity and its limitations
Use of local human resources and community involvement in tourism
Understand the possible negative impacts or damaging effects tourism might have on the community
Highlight the perception of tourism by the hosting community
Assess the current state of sustainability and the implications for future development 45
3.2 RESEARCH PROCEDURE: METHODOLOGY The research gathered primary as well as secondary data on Malawi and its tourism industry. Even though the research was not conducted directly in Malawi, the researcher was successful in gaining access to a wide number of contacts within the industry which allowed him to collect a satisfactory set of primary data, mainly through an email questionnaire administered to the main tourism businesses of Malawi and qualitative interviews to Malawi tourism experts and specialists. Secondary data from government reports, articles and tourism organisation databases have also been essential to integrate the findings for final presentation.
3.2.1 The Researcher’s Role as an Insider at the MTMC
Access is a fundamental issue in research design, particularly in quantitative research and might sometimes constitute an obstacle for those researchers who fail to obtain admission to the researched environment (Woodhams and Danieli, 2008). Access concerns not only information availability but also “managing relationships during the research process and the difficulties and benefits that the identities of researchers and researched can create for accessing information and opinions” (ibid., p. 13). In particular, a qualitative researcher should attempt to get as close as possible to research participants and the world it is being explored in the research process, possibly taking an insider perspective while making sense of his own position and beliefs when processing the data (Dunworth, 2008). Hence, researchers should possibly be “getting themselves deeply involved or immersed with the social world they want to investigate” (Watson, 2008, p. 99). Even though the research was mainly crafted and conducted from Nottingham and Derby, UK, the researcher gained an excellent access to the Malawi tourism industry thanks 46
to his close collaboration with the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium (MTMC), the main organisation responsible to market Malawi internationally. The company is located in Derby and also acts as International Tourist Information Office for Malawi, answering enquiries from all over the world. The researcher spent about five months at the MTMC, offering himself as a voluntary helper and working at regular intervals on a weekly basis. This period of close collaboration with the company allowed the researcher to gain total access and the organisation’s support for the research, being in effect adopted as a standard employee. Main responsibilities were to develop a social media strategy for the consortium and optimize the potential of online marketing opportunities. Contemporary to this role, data and market information on Malawi were gathered with the permission of the company. Information on lodges, businesses and tour operators were made available for research and the author became increasingly familiar with Malawi’s tourism market. A participant-as-observer approach was used, where the researcher “forms relationships and participates in activities but makes no secret of an intention to observe events” (Anderson, 2008, p. 150). Such truly participatory procedure improved the analytical potential of the research and helped to rapidly uncover information which is difficult to obtain by other formal and standard methods like ordinary interviews. As Anderson again suggests (ibid., p. 151), this methodology allows to learn about particular company procedures, to easily obtain market information and to develop relationships with potential informants and, as a further advantage, “the researcher label is often forgotten about by informants”.
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3.2.2 Field Notes
During the internship period at the MTMC office, field notes were initially gathered to facilitate a first understanding of Malawi tourism business. Questions, observations and casual conversations within the company were regularly annotated. As it is standard practice in qualitative research, notes were taken under various forms: mental notes, scratch notes, discussion highlights and full notes (Thorpe, 2008). These constituted a first step to build some background information on tourism in Malawi.
3.2.3 Email Questionnaire
Fieldwork in Malawi was not possible mainly because of logistical problems and lack of financial support. The researcher therefore designed an online questionnaire accessible on the web to be emailed to tourism companies, managers and experts involved in any tourism business in Malawi. The questionnaire (see Appendix 1 for the complete questionnaire) was mainly quantitative, with structured questions and answers; however a small number of open ended questions were also administered to gather qualitative data. The questionnaire asked questions mainly on:
Company origin and development
Company dimensions, characteristics and main activities
Type of ownership
Information on general Malawi infrastructures and the businesses specific infrastructures
Information on foreign investments in Malawi tourism business
Obstacles in business development
Involvement of local workforce 48
Efforts for sustainability
Theoretically, the total population of tourism businesses and tourism organisations based in Malawi was targeted and approached: accommodation sector (lodges, resorts, hotels, guesthouses), inbound tour operators and safari tour companies, travel agents, event organisers, transportation companies including Airlines, National Parks, the Department of Tourism and the department of National Parks and Wildlife. Contacted companies clearly included all the consortium’s member companies, lodges and tour operators operating in the international market. Non-members such as small-scale lodges, guesthouses and local transportation companies were also included and additional contacts, such as company managers and the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture were also included. This second set of contacts was provided both by the MTMC and the complete directory of Malawi companies on the Yellow pages. Other practitioners’ contacts were also supplied by MTMC. However in the practice, a number of email contacts proved to be dated and unusable and some emails failed to reach the recipients; also, multiple posting to the same company might have occurred heavily. The number of questionnaires that reached the target companies can be reasonably estimated at about 110. As regards for Consortium Members, about 40 companies, the most influential companies in the business, an introductory email written by the company’s marketing manager sensibly improved the response rate (see Appendix 2). For non-members, the company name was also used but this had clearly less effect on the response rate. As a further incentive to improve response rates, the researcher also committed to donate 0.50 GBP to the Malawi Orphan Care Trust Fund for every completed questionnaire. The deadline was set after 20 days, a reasonable amount of time considering that email surveys usually
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show quick responses. A reminder was also sent five days before the deadline to maximise responses. The response rate was relatively good: 17 completed questionnaires were returned and were usable for the research. This is comparatively a good result considering that the Consortium members are only 40 and the country has still quite low numbers of tourism businesses: the total number of international-level hotels and lodges throughout the country is only 54 to date. Also, considering that email surveys generate on average extremely low rates of responses, the questionnaire results can be considered well above average, at about 16% respondents (17 response from a total estimated at 110). Responses were reasonably variegated as they included also some feedback from nonmembers of the consortium (small local businesses operating in the local market), however no response was received by the Department of Tourism.
3.2.4 Qualitative Interviews
Interviewing is considered to be “the default means to collect qualitative data” (Sims, 2008, p. 118). Therefore, to compensate some limits of the email questionnaire, additional primary data was gathered through the following qualitative interviews. Contacts were chosen according to their expertise on Malawi; contacts were provided mainly by the MTMC, but included mostly individuals’ external to the company, as researchers involvement as an insider within a single company might cause sympathy at the expense of objectivity of research (Anderson, 2008). Interviews were recorded using a MP3 player and transcribed within 48 hours:
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Mr. Kelly White, Marketing Manager of MTMC since 2002 and an expert on Malawi. Previously employed by the Ministry of Tourism and also co-author of a travel guide on the country. Face-to-face, semi-structured interview (see Appendix 4 for complete transcript). A formal interview with Mr. Kelly White was fundamental to gain a wider understanding of Malawi tourism development in the last thirteen years from a business perspective. Mr. White offered his valuable expertise and answered questions on various topics such as: MTMC origins, the Department of Tourism, government role in tourism, planning, government concessions and natural reserves, tourism businesses and ownership, corruption, airline business, domestic market, tourism impacts, community participation and sustainability, tour operators selling Malawi.
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Mr. Listone Longwe, of Malawian nationality. Mature Marketing student at the University of Derby, UK with 8 year of past experience in the Malawi tourism industry (travel agents and inbound operators). Also author of a Master Dissertation on Air Malawi. Face-to-face, unstructured interview. Mr. Longwe contribution to this research allowed to understand how local Malawians might perceive tourism development and the problems associated with it. Thanks to his experience in the local tourism industry, Mr. Longwe also offered a critical analysis on the problems of the industry. Major topics discussed included: government role, management and planning limitations, Air Malawi and the airline business, infrastructures, corruption, Nyala National Park corruption case, community participation and displacement of tribes, perception of tourism by local Malawians, drug problems and prostitution, business oligopoly. 51
Mrs. Kate Webb, owner and Managing Director of the inbound travel operator ‘The Responsible Safari Company’, operating in Malawi and Zambia. Also an expert in international development with past work experience in Uganda and Kenya. Skype phone call, semi-structured interview. Mrs. Webb runs one of the most competitive travel operators in Malawi and gave a good insight on the challenges of sustainability for operational business in Malawi. Topics discussed included: ecotourism in Africa, sustainable development in Malawi, obstacles to development, conservation, business oligopoly, government role and limitations, political instability, corruption, power relations in tourism business, employment of locals and community-based tourism.
Mrs. Julie Croucher, currently a freelance Travel Consultant and Specialist on Malawi and Zambia, also owner of ‘Travel With Jules’, tour operator. She is originally a zoologist and conservationist; in the past she worked for about 10 years in the company Wilderness Safari, a big South African tour operator which is the biggest private tourism enterprise present in Malawi. Email interview, structured. Topics discussed included: Wilderness Safari, conservation, sustainable businesses in Malawi, community participation and its challenges, business development and power structures.
Mr. Ian Musyani, Tourism Officer at the Malawi High Commission in London. Mr. Musyani also has previous experience in the Department of Tourism and is a wellestablished expert on Malawi tourism. Email interview, structured. Topics
discussed
included:
Malawi
tourism
development,
limitations
to
development, experience in the Department of Tourism, organisation of tourism authorities. 52
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Mrs. Laela Adamson, an expert on international development with a particular focus on East and past experience in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. In Tanzania she worked as Head of Development for the NGO READ International. Email interview, structured. Topics discussed included: ecotourism and sustainable development in Africa, sustainability in Kenya, displacement of Maasai tribes, ecotourism in Tanzania and Zanzibar, Tourism for poverty reduction, international companies in Africa.
Clearly, all interview questions varied from one interview to another, also according to the expertise of the person interviewed, but always focused on most of the issues suggested above as research objectives. As a mean to illustrate the standard interview procedure, a complete interview transcript has been attached in the appendix 4.
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3.2.5 Secondary Data and Consultations with Mr. Kelly White.
During the five-month internship, the researcher developed a good relation with MTMC Marketing Manager, Mr. Kelly White. Particularly where the email questionnaire failed to deliver complete data, additional pieces of information were easily extrapolated from the material available through the MTMC, including: websites, brochures, leaflets, travel magazines, travel guides, reports and company profiles, as part of the content analysis procedures employed in research methods (Saunders, 2008). In particular, Mr. Kelly White’s market knowledge and expertise proofed to be particularly helpful in the moment of process the questionnaire results and check information on the various tourism businesses.
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Finally, additional material was also gathered from International Tourism Organisation (UNWTO and WTTC) reports on Malawi, Government Reports and some journal articles from various disciplines covering Africa and Malawi economy and development.
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4. CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Material gathered through the chosen methodology has allowed to present the following discussion on characteristics, problems and challenges for tourism businesses active in Malawi. Results from the research and the analysis of their possible implications have been ordered in six different issues with relative subsections. A summary of the responses obtained from the questionnaire is also available for reference in Appendix 31.
4.1 GENERAL STATE OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT Tourism services in Malawi often show discrepancies in their development according to the sectors taken into consideration. Infrastructures are considered to be underdeveloped in many areas of the country and are slowing down current development. Transportation and air access still constitute a problem. As it will further argued, from the point of view of institutions tourism is also still in its infancy. The one sector that instead has recently been growing rapidly is accommodation, in particular lodges, together with the conservation efforts allowed by the past establishment of nine National Parks and Reserves mostly during the 70s and 80s: Nyika National Park; Kasungu National Park; Lake Malawi National Park; Liwonde National Park; Lengwe National Park; Vwaza Marsh Reserve; Nkhotakota Reserve; Mwabvi Reserve; Majete Reserve. Despite this gradual and not homogenous development, tourism is quickly becoming an important pillar of the Malawi industry and it is showing greater positive impacts than in the past. According to WTTC’s (2011) latest estimates, travel and tourism direct contribution to the country is 3.7% (156,03mn GBP) of the total GDP and should potentially reach 7% by Where not indicated with a reference number, figures presented in this section are taken from the questionnaire responses available in the Appendix. 1
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2021. As the total contribution to GDP already counts for 6.9%, if growth is sustained, tourism will eventually help the country to diversify its economy and counterbalance its current dependency on agriculture (30% of GDP). Also employment in tourism is showing an overall positive impact on the country economy but still needs to grow: the industry now directly supports 95,000 jobs (3.1% total employment in Malawi). ďƒ¨ Figure 12: Total contribution of travel & tourism to Malawi’s GDP (WTTC, 2011)
Essentially, it must be considered that Malawi has little tradition as an international tourist destination. As the MTMC has confirmed, Malawi received very little international leisure tourists prior to year 1994, which can be considered the birth date of international tourism in Malawi. Before the country was governed under Dr. Hastings Banda’s despotic rule and tourism was not encouraged by the institutions and relatively few tourism businesses were founded prior to early 1990s, with some notable exceptions, like the Makokola Retreat lodge (1984) and smaller businesses like car rentals. The end of Apartheid in South Africa (1994) had also a positive impact on various African destinations and the MTMC agreed that Malawi in turn received positive effects from the rise in visitors to South Africa.
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After democracy came into effect in Malawi, during the second half of the 90s a first Ministry of Information and Tourism was established, though in the following years the institutional organisation of tourism has shown different change of Ministries; the current Department of Tourism is active under the broader Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture. Early 2000 saw an increasing in the investments in tourism businesses from abroad which generated increasing need for management and marketing expertise to serve an increasing interest in Malawi. Geo Groups’ associated, Mr. John Douglas and Mr. Kelly White (later founders of MTMC), were first employed by the Ministry of Information and Tourism, but the collaboration soon ceased by year 2002 because of insufficient financial support from the Ministry:
“What happened was that initially we started out [year 2002] and we did marketing for a combination of the Malawi Ministry of Tourism, which is a government agency, and a body called the Malawi Tourism Association, the MTA. […] And then they just.. yeah.. They just stopped [paying], said ‘sorry, we can’t pay you anymore’. No real reasons particularly. And so at that point we approached.. oh, and the same with MTA. They got some funding to help, and that funding, it stopped. They, as a body, they didn’t really have the finance to pay. Basically at that point there were twelve particular companies, who said –the initial members- they.. wanted us to carry on. So that’s how we started. And that was yeah, 2002… 2003, something like that. And then… it sort of grew and grew really. [...] It has grown from twelve companies to forty companies. Partly of that is companies who already existed, and who realised they should belong and joined.. but also new lodges coming along. There has been development in the last ten years in Malawi, where new companies, new lodges have emerged” (MTMC interview, 2011).
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Therefore with the support of the private sector, the marketing activity finally consolidated with the MTMC through the past decade. Contacts with outbound tour operators, PR and a UK Tourist Information Office helped to boost the continuous tourism development, though difficult air access, particularly from Europe, constitutes an obstacle. The very last years have witnessed growing investments and projects in tourism, suggesting that tourism development is reaching more mature levels. As for this year 2011, travel and tourism investments have been estimated at MKW 7,205.3mn/GBP 14.2 mn, 4.9% of total investments (WTTC, 2011).
4.1.1 Tourism Infrastructures
Still today, infrastructures are often indicated to be one of the most evident limitations to development. As witnessed by tourists contacting MTMC, visitors regularly identify a number of services that need upgrade. In particular problems regard:
Lilongwe International Airport and Blantyre Airport, both far from having an international standard. Notably, according to WTTC (2009) Malawi has indeed one of the world’s worst air transport infrastructures. Lack of direct flights from Europe and Asia and a poor integration with international networks are an obvious problem. International Companies that operate in Lilongwe International Airport are limited to: Air Zimbabwe, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenyan Airlines, South African Airways.
Road network is still of poor quality. The number of unpaved roads is still high and there is often a lack of road signs; petrol stations are not presented regularly on the territory. An important issue also considering that car rentals and fly-and-drive packages are very popular ways to explore the country.
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Lack of primary facilities for tourists in some areas: typical examples are water and sanitation services in poor conditions, lack of sewage systems and waste disposal in most areas. This means that lodges and accommodation businesses have to provide such services on their own.
Information and communication technologies are not optimal. For instance, rural areas are not covered by international telephone networks. Internet connection is sometimes unstable.
Health and hygiene infrastructures: lack of advanced hospitals. Tourists in need of special treatments or surgery operations should be transferred to South Africa.
Figure 13: World Economic Forum’s (2009) competitiveness index showing how infrastructures in Malawi constitute a competitive disadvantage for the tourist destination
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Figure 14: Message referring to a fuel shortage in Malawi during June 2011; such organisational problems occur often and are an obvious interference with tourism development
“Don't Panic! We wanted to update you all on the fuel situation in Malawi. Yes there is currently a fuel shortage in Malawi. There are very few ways around it but here is a check list of things to do before you book and travel in Malawi. 1. Public Transport: if you are planning to travel by public transport be prepared for long delays and some services not running. 2. Car Hire: Book car hire through a recognised travel or car hire company. Ask them how much fuel they are going to provide you with. Preferably try and guarantee some jerry cans or somewhere where you can source a fuel stash (through your hire company). You don't want to find yourself stranded in the middle of rural Malawi! 3. Fully Inclusive Packages: It is times like this that you want to make sure you have a company that will offer you 24hr on the ground support. It is advisable to book your car hire and accommodation with the same company, this way they will usually help you source fuel, meet you with back up fuel and keep you honestly informed of the situation. If you have booked your car hire and accommodation through Explore Malawi or/and The Responsible Safari Company we will try our very best to help you source fuel, provide jerry cans and be here at the end of email/skype and phone to offer the latest updates.” (Explore Malawi website message, 2011)
Responses obtained from the questionnaire have clearly confirmed such problems also from the perspective of the tourism businesses. 50% of companies indicated that the lack of infrastructures does constitute a penalising factor in the running of businesses, extremely penalising for 12% companies.
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4.1.2 Patterns of Foreign Investments: South Africa, UK, Netherlands and China
Questionnaire results also confirmed that in the last years infrastructures for tourism have been mostly foreign-funded. 88% businesses agreed that European investments have been essential to supply infrastructural problems; South Africa and other African countries were less decisive, while the Malawian Government played an important role in financing infrastructures according to 59%, but 35% disagreed. When generally asked from which countries Malawi benefitted the most for foreign investments, UK and South Africa always occupied top positions; but China and Netherlands were also almost constantly present in the respondents answers. Other answers also indicated occasionally USA, Germany. South Africa constitute Malawi’s main trading partner for most sectors of trade, accounting for more than 40% of the total trade volume of the country (3.2 billion $) (Globserver, 2011). Being an emerging economy in the whole of Africa, South Africa is in fact leading development particularly in the tourism services rather than in the infrastructures: as it will be later suggested regarding ownership of tourism businesses, foreign dependency in Malawi tourism essentially refers to South Africa. UK also has traditionally very strong links with Malawi, dating back to past colonial control on the country until 1964. Today UK is still linked with the country for missions of aid and works of support through NGOs and a high number of tourism businesses opened by Britons. The presence of the Netherlands is also justified by a good number of Dutch entrepreneurs who have opened or acquired a business, like Robin Pope Safaris, Kiboko Safaris & Kiboko Town Hotel, Safari Beach Lodge. A recent important investment was also the park concessions acquired by African Parks, a Dutch company specialised in conservation activities in Central Africa, now in charge to manage different properties in Majete Wildlife Reserve. 61
Interestingly, many respondents have confirmed that there is an increasing trend in Chinese investments in Malawi. The relations between the two countries began only at the end of 2007 but have now grown very rapidly, reaching now a value of trade of 100 million $ (Globserver, 2011). For example, a notable investment for tourism currently being finalised is a new luxury hotel and conference centre in Lilongwe, financed by the Shanghai Construction Company following a pledge of 260 million $ in concessions (ibid.). Also essential for transportation, a 100 km road connecting major towns in the extreme North of Malawi, Karonga and Chitipa, will also built by Chinese companies. But investments are also going well beyond transport and tourists’ facilities: projects in progress include the construction a University of Science and Technology in Thyolo (South Malawi) and a secondary school. In spite of this, the Chinese presence in Malawi has also caused occasional troubles. Chinese nationals have been caught trafficking ivory obtained from poaching; also Malawian dependents working under Chinese companies are said to be paid below the country’s minimum salary of 20 $ per month, with also overnight shifts. Finally, small local Malawian traders are also increasingly complaining about Chinese competition.
4.2 STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY Tourism businesses of Malawi can be mainly divided into businesses at international standards and small local companies. In the power structure of the business the most important companies are clearly the biggest members of the MTMC. Tourism companies (accommodation and operators) that aim to attract international tourists are 40, while there is less clarity on the total number of local companies, which often close down or are continuously replaced by new enterprises. 62
Lodges is the main business developing at a quicker pace, which also allows to obtain concessions in natural parks, where privatisation of tourist facilities is improving maintenance, management and upgrading tourist attractions and the level of the servicescape. Instead inbound tours and safari operators are still relatively few: 10. Private transportation companies are mostly car rentals. Typologies of businesses which answered the email questionnaire also reflect the supremacy of the accommodation sector among tourism companies in Malawi.
In particular the biggest and most important tourism business groups that can be identified in Malawi are: 
Wilderness Safaris Group, Malawi branch: 7 accommodation properties (lodges and camps) and inbound tour operating with a special focus on conservation. This big South-African group with headquarters in Johannesburg has also operations in Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Seychelles Islands. It was founded in 1983 and now employs a total of 2800 employees.
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Sunbird Malawi: exclusively accommodation, 7 properties: mainly city hotels. The Sunbird brand was originally Government-owned but was incorporated in a private company in 1988, but the Malawi Development Corporation still holds a 68% majority.
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Ulendo
Travel
Group:
accommodation
business
with
5
properties
(bungalows/lodges) and tour operations. A local Malawian inbound operator, active both in Malawi and Zambia with outbound operations to Kenya and Tanzania. It originated in 1998 as a Marketing Agent but it enjoyed stable growth and expansion in recent years and now offers a complete portfolio of tourist services. The board of directors features 4 directors from UK and two Malawians. Other smaller groups worth mentioning:
Kayak Africa: adventure and safari operator with headquarters in Cape Town; also owns 1 island camp/luxury lodge on a concession in Donwe Island, Lake Malawi and has operations also on Mumbo Island nearby.
Jambo Africa Ltd.: tour operator, also owns a lodge in Lengwe National Park. Responsible also for event management and for tours to Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique.
If on the one hand the lodge/accommodation sector is partly controlled by Wilderness Safari and Sunbird, for the rest it consists mostly of small-scale lodges opened by European entrepreneurs that moved to Malawi, mostly in the last ten-fifteen years. Tour operators are mostly foreign-owned, offering especially safari tours and other adventure travel and sport opportunities. Besides the cases of Wilderness Safaris, Ulendo, Kayak Africa and Jambo Africa, some smaller foreign-founded operators like Land & Lake Safaris (South African, est. 1986), Kiboko Safaris (Dutch, est. 1998) and Barefoot Safaris (South African, est. 1992) also own an accommodation property. A new Malawian tour operator, named Malawian Style, was opened in 2010. The number of employees in tourism companies of Malawi clearly varies a lot, from 4 to 245 according to questionnaire results, but the estimated average is 15-20 employees. 64
Transportation businesses involved in tourism stand on their own in terms of development. The railway system for example, is of very limited use for tourism and is now used mostly for freight transport of tobacco, sugar, tea and local products. It was operated by Malawi Railways until 1999 as a government corporation, but was then privatised and taken over by Central East African Railways guided by Railroad Development Corporation, an American group. Similarly, the bus network is not optimal and is clearly avoided by international travellers, who prefer to move by car or cross the country by air taxis. In fact a good number of car rental businesses are present with some small Malawian businesses that have grown and consolidated through the years, like SS Rent A Car, a locally-owned rental that was established as early as 1978. But international rental brands (Hertz and Avis) are also present. Notably it is the Airline business in Malawi the one which has witnessed various difficulties and today international flights reaching Malawi have to go through other major African hubs like Durban, Nairobi, Adis Ababa. ďƒ¨ Figure 15: Current air connectivity from UK to Malawi (MTMC company material, 2011)
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There is a national airline wholly government-owned, Air Malawi Ltd., which was remarkably established in 1964, initially as a subsidiary of Central African Airways. The company still concentrates on short-haul regional destinations (domestic flights, Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam, Harare) with only 3 aircrafts, but it is clearly facing serious financial problems. After 2000, there have been two major unsuccessful attempts to privatise the company. In 2003 the entering investor in partnership with South African Airways won the bid but finally did not agree on surety bonds agreements. In 2008/09 Comair, a South African private airline, was expected to acquire 51% shares, leaving 49% to the Government (KPMG, 2009). However the deal was not concluded and currently Air Malawi is still in business as a government-owned company. In recent times, private local companies entered the market to compete with Air Malawi; Mbachi Air was founded (2007) but according to a local Malawian closed down before its first year. Most recently in March 2011, a new Malawian private enterprise has been launched with Swift Air Malawi, though at the moment this covers only three domestic routes with small aircrafts, operating as an air shuttle internal to the country.
4.2.1 Globalisation of Business and Trends Towards Integration There is no evidence of overall globalisation in the tourism businesses of Malawi. For instance, there is lack of very big western Hotel groups in the accommodation sector. One of the top high-end city hotels in Blantyre, the Ryalls Hotel, is run by a South African chain (Protea) with a management contract. Clearly, Malawi is still a niche destination and this have in fact prevented big Western groups and vertically integrated tour operators to invest into Malawi until now, while they are often active in regional areas of other bigger African countries: 66
“[In other East African countries] there are some big international hotel names. Dar es Salaam has a Kempinski, a Holiday Inn etc. Kampala [Uganda] has several big ones. I know Addis Ababa has the Sheraton. As far as [Western] holiday companies, I would assume they do operate, especially to places like Zanzibar, Mombasa etc.” (East African Development Expert interview, 2011).
On the other hand, it has been major South Africans investors who have moved into the country expanding their businesses with positive results. As a further evidence of these trends, European outbound tour operators that sell Malawi are also mostly small groups specialised on Africa.
Table 4: Sample list of UK Tour operators selling Malawi (MTMC company material, 2011)
PLE) UK Tour Operators & Travel Agents Selling Malawi Holidays (SAM www.malawitourism.com For further general information: Tel (UK): 0115 9727250 Email: enquiries@malawitourism.com
The following list gives contact details for operators and travel agents in the UK who actively organise and sell holidays in Malawi. These may be on a tailor made basis, as specified itineraries, or as part of an overland trip. Some also specialise in niche areas, such as diving or horse riding. Specific Many have also included a statement about themselves, to help you choose the most suitable for you. Company Location Website Tailor Made Tours Overland Niche London www.absoluteafrica.com N Y Y Absolute Africa Over 30 years experience running affordab le overland camping safaris for the adventurous traveller. Suffolk www.artsafari.co.uk Y Y Art Art Safari Painting holidays for creative & adventurous people in inspiring destinations, tutored b y Malawi specialist & travel artist Mary-Anne Bartlett. Non- painting partners welcom Oxfordshire www.audleytravel.com Y Y N Audley Travel Audley Travel specialises in tailor-making trips to Malawi. We have a team of dedicated Africa specialists, with first-hand knowledge of Malawi as well as many other Africa London www.baobabexpeditions.com Y Y Y Baobab Expeditions Baob ab s’ expeditions are rooted in the philosophy of providing guests with life-changing experiences, incorporating the four key elements of relaxation Wolverhampton www.baobabtravel.com Y Y N Baobab Travel Baob ab is a UK-b ased specialist tour operator, b orn out of a comb ination of a love of Africa and travel, and a desire to actively work with and support local communities in Hampshire www.diveworldwide.com Y N Y Dive Dive Worldwide The Ultimate Diving Collection. Comb ine a wildlife safari with wonders of the deep, snorkelling and diving in Lake Malawi and the Indian Ocean Hampshire www.explore.co.uk Y Y Y Explore Explore have b een the leading adventure holiday operator for nearly 30 years – offering b oth small- group and tailormade tours designed to get you closer to the local pe London www.exsus.com Y N N Exsus Luxury African adventures, for explorers with standards. Edinburgh www.farsideafrica.com Y N N Farside Africa Specialists in tailor-made holidays to Malawi. We offer a very personal service, creating every itinerary individually and offering informed, first-hand advice to create a holid Yorkshire www.footlooseadventure.co.uk Y Footloose Travel Footloose specialises in tailormade made trips which give you flexib ility at a sensib le price. Devon www.ganeandmarshall.com Y N N Gane and Marshall Gane & Marshall specializes in luxury tailor-made holidays, ranging from safaris, trekking and special interest trips to b each holidays to Southern & East Africa.
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Gane & Marshall specializes in luxury tailor-made holidays, ranging from safaris, trekking and special interest trips to b each holidays to Southern & East Africa. Okavango Tours & Safaris London www.okavango.com Y Y N One of our consultants lived and worked in the safari industry in Malawi for nearly 8 years so our knowledge is fantastic! We specialise in tailored safaris utilizing small and int Original Travel London www.originaltravel.co.uk Y N N Experts in travel to Africa with excellent, personal, first-hand knowledge of b espoke travel in Malawi Rainbow Tours London www.rainbowtours.co.uk Y Y N Bespoke Rainb ow Tours is a specialist tour operator which focuses on exciting and unusual countries: Malawi, Madagascar, Egypt, Uganda and Zamb ia are among our large portfolio of Safaris Real Africa Norwich Y N N Real Africa offers private safaris and tours for the discerning traveller, tailored to your interests using private guides and vehicles. Expert advice and b rochure Saddle Skedaddle Biking Holidays Newcastle www.skedaddle.co.uk N Y N Cycling Malawi link = http://b iking.skedaddle.co.uk/holiday/Mountain_Bike_Holidays/Malawi_Ride_the_Rift_Mountain_Bike_Holiday/243/view.rails Safari Club Ltd Buckinghamshire www.safari-club.co.uk Y N N Safari Club is a UK b ased specialist tour operator providing tailor made safaris and African holidays to Southern and Eastern Africa. Safari Consultants Suffolk www.safari-consultants.co.uk Y N N Offering personalised tailor-made holidays to East & Southern Africa Steppes Travel Gloucestershire www.steppestravel.co.uk Y Steppes Travel offers tailor-made holidays to suit our clients requirements. We specialise in small, luxury properties which are off the b eaten track. Tana Travel Warwickshire www.tanatravel.com Y Y Y In conjunction with our local ground handlers in Malawi, we are ab le to tailor-make any itinerary according to the clients' specific requirements, interests and b udget. The Independent Traveller Berkshire www.independenttraveller.com Y Y Y Truly individual holidays prepared with meticulous attention to detail at affordab le prices Travel Time East Sussex www,traveltime.co.uk Y Y Y Bespoke travel itineries to Malawi and b eyond for discerning individuals, small groups and ladies travelling alone. It's an excisting world; travelsure with Travel Time. Tribes Travel Suffolk www.tribes.co.uk Y Y N Responsible Trib es, the original Fair Trade travel company, High quality tailor made safaris and holidays planned b y friendly experts who have some of the b est knowledge on Malawi yo Wildlife Worldwide Hampshire www.wildlifeworldwide.com Y Y N The ultimate in tailor-made wildlife holidays to dream destinations for the conservation-minded traveller. European and long-haul World Odyssey Worcester www.world-odyssey.com Y N N Yomps Brighton www.yomps.co.uk N Y Y Gap Year The perfect filler for a gap year, career b reak or adventure overseas travel experience. We comb ine adventure, training courses, exploration, volunteering, cultural experience Zambezi Safari & Travel Co. Ltd. Devon www.zambezi.com Y Y N Small, intimate, owner run properties with the emphasis on wildlife; tailor made itineraries including special interest ornithology, b otany and photography. Offices in Africa and
As the MTMC has argued, most mainstream operators also require primarily high volumes of tourists visiting a destination. In brief, very few truly international corporations operating in tourism have shown interest in Malawi. Similarly, because most businesses in Malawi operate on a relatively small scale, there is only a partial trend towards vertical integration within tourism businesses. Only the most successful tour operators (besides the most important ones, also Kiboko Safaris, Land & Lake Safaris, Robin Pope Safaris, Barefoot Safaris, Budget Safari) have been able to expand into the accommodation sectors while very few businesses starting as lodges developed in a way that could offer safaris tours and other similar operations. Rather than efforts for integrate other sectors, also many other businesses have found it easier to expand in neighbouring countries. For example, The Responsible Safari Company (exclusively a tour operator) started in Malawi but soon expanded in Zambia and might start operations in Mozambique in the future. The general trend however, indicates that businesses prefer to start as tour operators and eventually expand by opening lodges. 68
4.2.2 Oligopoly
Various people have agreed that there is a certain degree of oligopoly in the power structure of tourism business in Malawi. Big operators and chains like Wilderness Safaris, Government-owned enterprises (e.g. Sunbird) and other South African companies and organisations are able to influence the development of tourism. They are also the ones who regularly succeed in obtaining concessions in National Parks from Government, while smaller lodges certainly exercise less power over development. However, this is not having a bad impact on the country, because the bigger operators are also the ones who are showing major efforts to improve services and facilities for long term sustainability:
“Yes, Wilderness Safari is doing a lot of fantastic work here. […] With the wonderful position they have, as a big group, they are very successful and have got some wonderful lodges, they are very into making sure that their business is sustainable, and they do a lot of training and lots of… community awareness projects, these kinds of things” (The Responsible Safari Company interview, 2011).
Hence, the public sector remains important in the decision-making process, but it is the bigger private businesses to be determinant in raising the standard of facilities and services, like the mentioned Wilderness Safari or the recent projects carried on by African Parks Company for conservation.
4.2.3 Foreign Domination
It has become obvious from previous discussions that the Malawi tourism industry shows strong signs of foreign domination. As investments have often come from foreign countries, ownership of tourism businesses also shows similar patterns of development. 69
According to questionnaire results, 53% of the businesses are foreign-owned (mostly British or South African); 18% jointly owned, but 24% businesses are Malawian privatelyowned. Jointly ownership is now a increasing popular occurrence that can include Malawians in the tourism business. For instance, Land and Lake Safaris now shows 80% foreign ownership and a 20% Malawian ownership, but it started as entirely foreign-owned. Similarly, Makuzi Beach Lodge is “jointly owned by 3 members of one family, 2 of which are British, 1 of which is Malawian. (Father and 2 children - 1 child born and raised in Malawi)” (Makuzi Beach questionnaire, 2011).
However at the business start-up, “foreign entrepreneur” has been confirmed as most often occurring circumstance in which a tourism business was found (69%); family-run business (often foreigners too) ranks second (38%), but Malawian entrepreneurs investing independently constitute only the 6% of cases.
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As a further confirmation of foreign dependency, 29% tourism business agreed and 47% strongly agreed with the given statement: "because Malawi has limited economic development and no overall domestic tourism, its tourism industry has been developed mainly by foreign entrepreneurs for foreign tourists". No respondents disagreed with the statement.
While foreign domination is indeed strong, this is not currently having a negative effect necessarily. On the one hand, the pattern of development emerged from the research shows again major ownerships in tourism by bigger South Africans companies. Dependency on South African for direct investments in tourism businesses is again evident, like in other sectors of Malawi’s economy like finance and retail chains (KPMG, 2009). For the rest, other small-scale lodges and operators are European-funded, but mostly these businesses have been opened as part of a lifestyle choice to live in Africa by the investor: European entrepreneurs, mostly British nationals (most of the independent lodges) but also Dutch (Kawa Mawa, Kiboko Town Hotel, Safari Beach Lodge, Mkulumadzi 71
lodge by Robin Pope Safaris), German (Safari Cottage), Italian (Makokola Retreat), French (Cape Mac Lodge) have moved to Malawi to run directly the business and then choose to employ locals. This minimises the leakage effect and money is often reinvested and spent in the local economy of Malawi. In terms economic impact, it can be suggested that leakage might only occur in reference with some big South African groups and a few mid-sized British-founded business with headquarters still in England (e.g. Project African Wilderness in Manchester, Tongole Wilderness Lodge in Kent, Manda Wilderness in London). Somewhat particular is the situation for the Makokola Retreat, originally opened (1984) by an Italian family and now run by their Italian-Malawian offsprings. Besides South Africa and Europe, other neighbouring African countries have not invested much into Malawi tourism yet: one notable exception might be the gaming industry, with the opening of a Casino in Blantyre in 2003. On Malawi Development Corporation’s request, a Tanzanian company, KaiRo International, set up in Malawi a branch of their Casino and entertainment chain. As much as foreign influence is concerned, it has also to be noticed that despite increasing Chinese investments in infrastructures, Asian presence within the tourism businesses is still limited to very few Asian restaurants offering simple accommodation (e.g. China Da Restaurant and Lodge, Kim’s Koreana Lodge & Restaurant). A peculiar case is the Korea Garden Lodge in Lilongwe Old Town, a very competitive international lodge which is owned by a Korean family.
4.2.4 Domestic Tourism and Malawian Businesses
Because of high levels of poverty, besides foreign domination in Malawi there is also a partial lack of domestic tourism. In fact the country is certainly dependent on the foreign 72
markets also for demand, particularly European markets, South Africa and neighbouring countries: in particular questionnaires results reported that 88% of tourism business targets Europeans, which remains a key market also for smaller local businesses. Also, even long-term NGO workers and expatriates that become part of the domestic market are served at an international standard; the implication is that tourism and travel businesses have to keep high standards for an entirely international clientele, even in the case of European/Westerner budget travellers. This has discouraged local Malawians to open simple and basic guesthouses to serve casual domestic Malawian travellers requiring much lower standards and cheap services. Questionnaire in fact confirmed that Malawian businesses are few and attempt to target exclusively foreign tourists. These businesses often have to compete with international businesses with the result of having problems to achieve profitability.
A possible example would be the case of Soche Travel and Tours, in the past years a very competitive Malawian inbound operator (est. 1979) and member of MTMC, which closed
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down in 2009 because of debts. One interview participant was employed by the company and confirms that Malawian businesses often struggle to survive:
“The few Malawians who are in the business… When they open something, they see they are doing ok and making profits, instead of trying to work hard to improve the services, they… relax! And at the end of the day they find themselves out of the business. There is no proper management of the facilities” (Local Malawian interview, 2011).
However the market of Malawian locals travelling internally is gradually emerging according to some other businesses: “it may not be so visible presently as most establishments frequented by foreign tourists are beyond their budget, but that gap is being bridged. Our local client base is showing a steady increase” (Fisherman’s Rest Lodge questionnaire, 2011). There is an emerging Malawian middle-class, but according to general opinion tourism is currently restricted to mostly business travellers and Malawians travelling for leisure is still uncommon. The formation of an internal Malawian market should potentially improve the opportunities for local entrepreneurs starting a business focused on local Malawian travellers.
4.2.5 Enclave Model
In conclusion, though there is strong presence of foreign ownership and few domestic leisure tourists, tourism to Malawi is not organised as an enclave industry. The mostly smallscale organisation of tourism businesses and absence of big international companies has also avoided an enclave effect in Malawi tourism business as demonstrated by research findings. Accommodation properties have shown to be usually small in capacity: 15-25 people on average, because lodges, camps and chalets are present rather than resorts. 74
These are also well integrated with the surrounding environment and local communities rather than being closed self-sufficient communities, even in the facilities owned by the bigger groups. Also because of the small dimensions and variety of the country, tourists are also often encourage to tour different areas rather than purchase all-inclusive products from single accommodation providers. However there is still a persistent difference between tourism areas and non-tourism area where tourists do not easily access, but this is due particularly to health safety reason relating to Malaria and the interior of the country is still left aside from tourism development. Still, the tourism spending will be spread more uniformly across different lodges in various areas, parks and other amenities. As it will be later argue on sustainable projects, many lodges are also linked with local development projects, employ local manpower and allow visitors to interact with neighbouring communities.
4.3 GOVERNMENT ROLE, PLANNING AND LIMITATIONS The lack of government support of tourism has been criticised by various businesses in Malawi. Even though the government did identify tourism as a strategic industry for the development of the country and to reduce poverty also in connection with their Millennium Development Goals, practical efforts have been poor and development has been prompted only by the private sector. Government responsibility for tourism development is now represented by the Department of Tourism within the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture. According to much of Malawian medias and newspapers however, the Department of Tourism was until recent years in a state of “chaotic conditions� (Afrol, 2005, n.p.). A tourism officer employed 75
in the Department complained to a National newspaper about the organisation of work, claiming that “discipline at the department is impossible to administer, because everybody is related to someone senior” (ibid., n.p.). In the recent past also, a British tourists complained on the rundown condition of the Malawi High Commission Office in London where the Ministry operates a Tourist Office. Not only he did not find no updated or useful information but also “the Malawi flag flying outside was so dirty that I did not recognise it. The brass plaque, bearing the name of the Malawi High Commission, had not been polished for years and the door was locked at 10.00 am in the morning. The curtains hanging in the front window thread bare and filthy dirty, obviously the curtains and windows had not been washed for years” (ibid., n.p.). These simple remarks well represent the past unpreparedness of the Department in managing tourism development. The situation seems however to have improved in the last two years: “Before I go further, I would like to repond on your assumption of the department [of Tourism] as being a bit disorganised. The observation might not be entirely correct, it depends on the angle that you premised your assumption. It has in many aspects over the years been well organised, as manifested in many ways: strong public - private partnership in destination marketing issues; regulating of the tourism industry; facillitating tourism investment amongst others. [...] Most of the limitations center around resources. With sufficient resources, the department would be in a position to work on the existing limitations, for instance increased promotional campaigns would generate increased tourism traffic to Malawi and would in turn warrant international carriers to take the Malawi route” (Malawi High Commission in London, interview).
For the aims of this research, insufficient government planning and policies, financial problems, lack of transparency and signs of a possible political instability in the future have 76
been identified as inhibitors of development for the country in relation to the government role.
4.3.1 Planning and Policy
Planning and policy-making activity is taking place but only as a formal procedure; the Department of Tourism role is limited to monitoring, while practical implementations are often left unrealised. With the support of a team of European consultants, a ten year plan also known as Tourism Strategy was established since the beginning of year 2000. The mission statement for tourism growth as part of the overall development strategy quotes the following:
“Malawi will be established as a principal and leading eco-tourism destination in Africa and domestic tourism will be increased. Strategies to be pursued include: increasing capacity to service additional tourists
in
international competitive
accommodations;
improving
transportation links to tourism destinations; increasing attractiveness of national parks for tourism and eco-tourism and improving tourism marketing regionally and internationally” (Malawi growth and development strategy document, p. 19).
As for objectives, the Tourism Strategy simplistically highlighted the following: increase the role of tourism in Malawi’s economy; increase foreign currency earning; generate long term employment opportunities; help the reduction of poverty; help the conservation of wildlife and protected areas (Mauambeta, 2003). The Department has recently showed to be more active than in the past, but policies are also still said to be too general. As a matter of fact, the Malawian National Tourism Policy is basically a 25 page report that cyclically is updated to describe the situation of the tourism 77
industry, underlining its limits, monitoring activities and offering possible long-term solutions. Again, it is the implementation which does not occur much in practice: “What’s never happened though, is that... there is always money for plans, never money for implementation. So often these plans exist as documents, and that’s it. The ability to implement is limited by funding. And also, I have to say, personally speaking, I think that the results of these plans and the conclusions are either extremely obvious things that people know, or are things that will never ever happen. […]Most of the developments in tourism in Malawi come from the private sector, as a response to demand. You know, people seeking opportunities” (MTMC interview, 2011).
Table 5: Example of procedure and lack of implementation from the 2006-2011 development strategy (Malawi Growth and Development Strategy 2006-2011, p. 156-8)
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Therefore in terms of government policies, the most important measures taken have rather aimed to create an attracting environment to encourage the private sectors to invest. Reforms have gone in this direction since 1994 to allow more economic growth from the industry: “The Government encourages both domestic and foreign investment in most sectors of the economy, without restrictions on ownership, size of investment or source of funds. Malawi’s investment framework, for both foreign and domestic investors is governed by the Investment Promotion Act of 1991, and is administered by the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA). In the 2007/2008 financial year Government has provided very attractive incentives for investors in the tourism sector.� (Tourism Investment Opportunities in Malawi Report, 2008, p.4)
A much more effective government role is evident on the front of conservation, with the Department of Wildlife and Parks. Here as well, as standard practice, privates have been given concessions to manage the protected areas sustainably but with much more effective results. The first concession for lodges and camps was given to Wilderness Safari in order to manage, run the lodge and improve infrastructures in Liwonde National Park for a ten year 79
period, starting in 1994. In recent times other notable concessions have been: Nyika Safari Company in Nyika National Park, Jambo Africa in Lengwe National Park (Nyala Lodge) and Chinguni Hills Lodge operating in Liwonde National Park. In summer 2011 Robin Pope Safari has also opened the new Mukulumadzi lodge in Majete Wildlife Reserve. All such projects have involved the improvement of facilities and management: “The parks that are successful, in terms of conservation, are the ones where there is a strong private sector involvement. Liwonde National Park is the best park in Malawi, but it is like that because of Wilderness Safari, who has been running the lodge there. Lodge and camp, for a number of years. They are very involved in the preservation of the park, they help, they assist the Ministry of Tourism. The other park which is growing very rapidly is Majete, that has been taken over by a Dutch group, African Parks, who now runs the park for them , for the Department of Parks. So that’s all on external money and external expertise” (MTMC interview, 2011).
By this process, clearly the investing companies “shall be entitled to any income arising from the management of the reserve including, but not limited to, entrance fees, tourism, concession income, lease repayments, hunting revenues and proceeds from the sale of game and animal and plant by-products. The major generator of income is expected to be from tourism” (Wilson and Morgain, in Mauambeta, 2003). In addition, an important role in conservation has also been played by the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM). Since more than fifty years, this organisation has often lobbied the government to undertake various successful conservation projects in partnership with privates, such as the following (Mauambeta, 2003):
Works in Mwabvi Wildlife Reserve in favour of the protection of the black rhino (1951) 80
Project in Nyika national Park (1952) and Majete Wildlife Reserve to protect the Nyasa Klipspringer (1955)
Conservation projects in Lengwe National Park (1970)
Activity by WESM also included education projects to improve awareness and the society has also helped in the development of infrastructures.
Black rhino reintroduction projects in Liwonde National Parks and management of game reserve by J&B Circle and J&B Care for the Rare (1993)
Figure 16: Article from ‘The Nation’ (3 May, 2007) praising African Parks’ efforts to improve Majete Reserve (MTMC company material, 2011)
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4.3.2 Budget Problems
As far as the government role is concerned, from the research has become evident that the Department of Tourism has primarily budget problems. That was one particular reason behind the founding of MTMC in 2002, as White and Douglas were previously employed by the government, which after a short period cut the funding: “Well, the Ministry has never had much of a budget to be able to do proper marketing work for Malawi. That is one of the reasons why we are doing it. They are more active now than they have been in the past. But still, we are very well established in what we do, so particularly on the trade side of things – tour operators – we are the ones who got the reliable information” (MTMC interview, 2011).
Tourism taxes have circulated in alternate periods to allow the Government to recover money for marketing. The situation has slightly improved in the last years and the Department of Tourism is now able to produce its own brochure/directory of tourism; owns a simple promotional website and has an Information Office at the Malawi High Commission in London. However in practice, efforts to marketing and contributing to tourism development are very limited. To allow the Department to recover funds, last year the tourism levy has been reintroduced at a 1% (it used to be around 5% in the past) which applies to tourism spending. However the Responsible Safari Company, like the MTMC also, have both shown perplexities and doubts on how the money raised is effectively spent: “They reintroduced a tourism levy, which is 1% on everything all of us in tourism make, that was supposed to go to international marketing. And… we have seen nothing, nothing from them, yet we keep on paying it. I think it’s just all a bit unorganised. I think the Government perhaps do the best they can, but.. who knows, really…” (Responsible Safari Company interview, 2011).
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
4.3.3 Corruption
Corruption is also a problem involving the governments of many developing African countries and Malawi makes no exception: according to the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International, in 2010 Malawi still ranks 85 out of 178 countries for corruption, though the situation has much improved in the last years (African Economic Outlook, 2011). Though some people argued it is not as bad as in other central African countries, there is some agreement that it still might be causing problems for tourism development. Rather than in tourism business themselves, problems of corruption have become relevant in the country’s bureaucracy and its procedures. For the Responsible Safari Company corruption constitute a problem and also sometimes affects the day-to-day running of the business and the management of tourism supply. One particular case of corruption in the tourism industry involved Nyika National Park and Vwaza Marsh Reserve in the year 2006/7, the Government awarded a concession agreement with a 99 years lease to a Dubai firm. The case was soon brought to attention and the lease ceased to exist. On a smaller scale, allegations of nepotism have also hit the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture in the past years, which were accused by local medias to employ unskilled personnel and relatives in exchange of favours (Afrol, 2005). Though these are certainly matters delicate to investigate, it has been clearly recognised that current corruption might jeopardise sustainable development of tourism in Malawi and the management of its tourism organisations. In the last years an AntiCorruption Bureau has been set up by the Government itself, but it has been lamented that in the practice corruption problems in the country still persist (Afrol, 2005).
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4.3.4 Political Stability
In the recent months, slight political disturbances are also raising some worries among tourism businesses of Malawi: “There are some murmurings and things that are happening that aren’t very good. You know, the current president is going a bit down the dictatorship line. I don’t think he will get all the way down it, but it needs to stay politically stable. If it doesn’t, the whole thing crashes again. That’s a sort of slight worry in the back of our mind” (MTMC interview, 2011).
The Responsible Safari Company has also shown similar concern, saying that some recent political events are putting some pressure on the Malawi and might have a damaging impact on businesses. These worries refer to a number of autocratic measures put in place by the 77 years old President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika in the last months. In respond to critics to his government, he has set up censorship and has repressed popular protests. He has also put members of his family in positions of power and seemingly he is willing to set up a dynasty-like succession. In the last weeks the country has also been partially closed down to foreign aid, but the Malawian people are showing increasing dissatisfaction with the current political situation. At the time of writing of this research, it is still unclear how much the threat of degeneration to actual dictatorship is probable. While the situation is still relatively stable at the moment, this is clearly a crucial issue for long-term development of the country. It is doubtless that an increase in political unrest will strongly destabilise the country and affect future development of tourism.
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4.4 USE OF LOCAL HUMAN RESOURCES AND COMMUNITY PARTECIPATION As it has been shown in the literature review, the extent to which local communities are involved in tourism development is significant to assess sustainability of development and the potential to reduce poverty. As regards the use of local manpower, the situation in Malawi is being managed in a positive way. Even though foreign ownership is strongly present, the number of expatriate workers and managers is relatively low and most businesses have shown commitment in recruiting and train locals.

4.4.1 Employment
Current employment in tourism is possibly the most notable positive impact of tourism on the Malawians communities. MTMC confirms that in rural areas tourism businesses easily become the biggest employers and each bed in a lodge is claimed to potentially sustain 14 Malawians. According to the latest WTTC analyses, this year the travel and tourism industry is also expected to directly generate 95,000 jobs in Malawi, 3.1 % of total employment (WTTC Malawi Report, 2011). Forecast for 2021 predict that the travel industry will direct sustain 127,000 jobs, hence with a 32,000 (32,6%) increase in the next ten years.
ďƒ¨ Figure 17 (next page): Direct contribution of travel & tourism to employment in Malawi (WTTC, 2011)
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In terms of total contribution, tourism is sustaining an estimate of 212,000 jobs, 6.9% of total employment, with equally favourable projections for the future. The email questionnaire asked businesses to what extent local Malawians are employed in the industry: according to the results, locals are employed at a very high rate. 47% businesses have said 90% of their staff to be Malawian; 35% responded that only Malawians work in their business. Only a 6% minority answered that no Malawians are employed, and the given reason was a lack of skilled workforce and linguistic/cultural barriers rather than high levels of poverty and health safety reasons related to infectious diseases. As regards the positions occupied by Malawian working in tourism, low-skilled works hold still the majority with positions such as handymen, drivers, caretakers, waiters, but there is also increasing employment of Malawian for higher positions as chefs, tour guides and front desk managers. Relatively few Malawians are employed in high-skilled managerial positions (see graph next page).
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The effectiveness of employing Malawians is however improving and there is reason to believe that in the next generations training and recruitment of Malawians will gradually improve possibly to include top level positions. If expatriate managers are still frequent, this is limited to some South African nationals in city hotels of Blantyre and Lilongwe. Still, despite this promising scenario, 53% of businesses agreed with the following statement: “it is difficult to recruit locals mainly because of a lack of training to develop tourism-related skills. Malawi is not yet ready to manage tourism on its own". Makuzi Beach Lodge, which disagreed with the statement, commented: “Due to the market being mainly focused on Westerners, one would like a Malawian staff member to be trained to agree with this market, but Malawians have yet to be trained to a level of understanding of the quality of service which is expected by the Western world. I don't think this is through lack of trying on the trainers part! Unfortunately, it is a cultural difference which cannot be explained and to be honest, we feel like we have to wake up every day and start again, because the message does not get through. I know this is a commonly lamented fact by many lodge owners we know� (Makuzi Beach Lodge questionnaire, 2011).
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Other lodges have lamented the natural problem of training people from rural communities; for the rest, Malawians from the urban centres holding University degree are clearly preferred. It is therefore crucial for the country and its businesses to reinvest in continuous training to allow locals to sustain the future tourism development at an international standard, generating a transfer of skills from the expatriate investors to the Malawian nationals. As a positive factor, training schools and centres for tourism are growing, while some bigger companies like Wilderness Safari prefer in-house training. On a national scale, currently the main training centre is the Malawi Institute of Tourism, offering Certificate and Diploma courses in Tourism and Hospitality, with particular focus on front office operations, housekeeping, food production and food & beverages services. Tourism management has also been recently added and from 2006 Mzuzu University has also started to offer degrees in Tourism and Hospitality (KPMG, 2009).

4.4.2 Community Participation
Despite the employment of Malawians, efforts for community participation are still discontinuous. Nonetheless, there are indeed a number of companies which are directly involved with development projects in the rural communities. In such way, tourism can be used to generate small-scale enterprises in the communities. Example of these is the opening Luwawa Forest Lodge, where the neighbouring communities were encouraged to set up little industries of natural products, jewellery and handicrafts to be sold to visitors. Similar development projects have also created little grocery businesses and even a weaving centre on Likoma Island, Lake Malawi. Many businessmen in tourism are also involved in such a way that tourism revenues have helped projects to build schools and improve the 88
local services. Founders of Kaya Mawa lodge have also been formally adopted by the local chiefs as part of the local tribe. Experiences directly from businesses confirm that participation is happening through village visits, contacts with locals and educative projects. From the perspective of the locals however, community-based form of tourism is still weak and few rural communities are able to manage tourism resources at their own discretion. Also, because tourism planning is still much uncoordinated, involvement of local tribes as stakeholder is not always a standard procedure. According to MTMC, local tribes are not consulted in planning, yet concessions and similar projects required the approval from the local chiefs to be carried on. A Malawian national interviewed has also underlined how small communities are not much involved in decision-making processes that regard tourism. The standard procedure is rather a negotiation for a land area with the local chiefs, but the agreed prices often under-priced and do not reflect the real value of the territory as well as local chiefs can also be easily corrupted. Despite different instances and degrees of community participation, Liwonde National park has witnessed a number of community-based projects with various community-run plans and a cultural village, including as well the following community projects (Novelli and Scarth, 2007):
Makanga Women’s Group
Naifulu Group discussion
Masanje Group Discussion
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Remarkably, it is also the biggest operator in the country, Wilderness Safaris, one of the businesses more involved with sustainable projects and with a genuine concern for long term conservation: “Yes, Wilderness [Safaris] are very active in conservation in Malawi, mainly around their own camps, particularly at Clinteche Inn on the lake and Mvuu Camp & Lodge in Liwonde. Like everyone there, they employ a large local workforce which is important. They are also active in Malawi with their “Children in the wilderness” projects, and they produce detailed conservation reports and annual reports” (Malawi Travel Consultant interview, 2011).
The company is in fact responsible for educational programmes on conservation for children of the rural communities (“Children of the Wilderness” mentioned above) but it is also strongly engaged in conservation through the Wilderness Wildlife Trust, active in the whole South Africa. In Malawi it is currently in charge of two projects, Liwonde National Park and Nanthomba School. Figure 18: List of Wilderness Safaris’ projects throughout Southern Africa (Wilderness Safaris website, 2011)
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Similarly, the Responsible Safari Company, was born in 2008 with the attempt to combine community projects and volunteering with the travel and holiday business. Though recently founded, the Responsible Safari Company has quickly established a strong trend in the sustainable management of tourism in Malawi. “We had a great day out in the village, saw several projects, met lots of people and lots of children, and had a brilliant Nsima cookery course with two local women. All of this felt like a genuine non-touristy meaningful experience and we’re very grateful for the opportunity” (Testimonial from The Responsible Safari Company Website, 2011).
As a matter of fact, the company is directly linked with various development projects in the country, like for example the Ripple Africa Environmental Projects against deforestation or the Mulanje Orphan Care Project. Figure 19: Current community projects carried on by the Responsible Safari Company (Company website, 2011)
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However, Responsible Safari has confirmed that community-run projects often have to be prompted by lodge owners in order to be started and it has witnesses that despite the efforts there are still limitations to allow community-based tourism. The company in fact has suggested that a combination of community-based tourism and international support by expatriates is probably the most sustainable option currently available for Malawi. The rules of international tourism require sometimes higher standards and a minimal degree of foreign expertise to manage tourism successfully.
4.5 NEGATIVE IMPACTS AND COMMUNITY PERCEPTION OF TOURISM Through this research, efforts have been made to unveil also some possible negative sides of the current tourism development. This issue has shown mixed reactions. While MTMC has referred to tourism as an overall positive factor, other sources have been more cautious in assessing the costs of tourism development; various experts on international development and responsible travel have highlighted some limitations to sustainability respectively in Malawi and the whole of East Africa in general, pointing out how tourism could have a very positive impact but it is still underdeveloped and possibilities are therefore sometimes limited. To analyse this particular issue, a Malawian perspective has also been adopted to understand how local Malawians might really perceive tourism development and the presence of incidents that might be less evident in the eyes of international businesses.
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4.5.1 Community Discontent
While tourism is often being managed to impact positively in the country, local Malawians have still mixed emotions towards it. It is an accepted notion that tourism can serve for 92
education, but it has been pointed out that this is not happening in practice, because of management problems. According to locals, the linkages with local economies is judged be still weak and involvement of locals limited, though as argued above there is evidence supporting that communities involvement is taking place. When asked about tourism impacts, a native Malawian answered that the perception of tourism by Malawians is negative. “[Tourism] it doesn’t help the local communities. People have gone in the local communities, utilized resources, but haven’t invested back, haven’t given anything back to the community. (…) For example, people who open lodges in the local areas, they will call people to go to the lodge to perform cultural dances, they are just paid… peanuts, really. Tourist go to that lodge… at the end of the day, it is the person that owns the lodge that will benefit. Local people will go home with something just to buy… bread, and a packet of sugar. That’s it.” (Local Malawian interview, 2011).
Therefore even though locals are employed in the industry, salaries have said to be too low. Also, because of poverty local Malawians cannot access tourism facilities and this might trigger further tensions. It has been argued by the interviewed Malawian that while tourism has the potential to help the country, mismanagement and lack of Government efforts are still not positively impacting with the Malawian community. It has also been pointed out that tourism has concentrated on the lakeshore area, leaving some areas in the interior left out and in terms of cultural exploitation, it has been also lamented that tribes are brought to the urban areas to perform cultural dances: “Yes, a lot of work needs to be done.. You have overconcentration of lodges along the lakeshore, of lodges… […] But.. the airport, the road network.. is still so poor, there is no proper management of the transport system there also a lot of corruption at the borders” (Local Malawian interview, 2011).
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However such negative views are certainly not shared by everyone: “I’m surprised to hear negative points from locals, as most places I know pay their local staff better than they would get in the local industries to work in the tourist business” (Malawi Travel Consultant interview, 2011).
4.5.2 Drug Tourism and Prostitution
Malawi is a big producer of tobacco leaves worldwide, but thanks to its peculiar environmental conditions, the country has gained fame also for the illegal cultivation of Indian hemp. The so-called “Malawi Gold” variety has become famous internationally among users of cannabis. Also for this reason, there is the increasing threat that Malawi might be increasingly popular as a stopover for backpackers, who are often among the consumers of this drug, thus becoming an established African destination for drug tourism and even prostitution: “Tourism has brought in prostitution, drug habits. You have places in the South Lakeshore, when I go there, there are all these tourists, and all they are looking for is drugs. Mainly backpackers… And for the young people there is an opportunity to make money, so they supply drugs to them. And…there are these poor girls… They just want a bit of foreign money... […] so they would sleep with people, you know… […] Mostly it’s the backpackers, but sometimes tourists which are not even the backpackers. I met also business travellers hooking up with Malawian girls. […] Local people cannot embrace tourism: they feel… you are taking away our kids and get them involved with prostitution. So… anything to do with tourism, to the older people… the overall impact will be negative” (Local Malawian interview, 2011).
Therefore inevitably, tourism particularly in its lower market range can be view as a factor that is allowing the drug tourism market of Malawi to grow. This has also fuelled a negative view of tourism by some local Malawians. As evident from the statement above, 94
prostitution has also been highlighted as a problem, often occurring also among business travellers. Behind the circuit of international upmarket tourism therefore, there is a whole underworld of budget and casual travellers which are evidently causing troubles for the wider development of the country.
ďƒ¨ Figure 20: Frames from Youtube videos depicting Europeans in search of Marijuana in Malawi
4.6 CURRENT STATE OF SUSTAINABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT In the email questionnaire, tourism businesses of Malawi were specifically asked in what practical ways their business impacted on the local Malawian economy in a sustainable way. Results give a positive picture of sustainable business in Malawi which however must be 95
considered with care and field researches in Malawi are strongly needed to confirm such information.
4.6.1 Current efforts
For instance, from the questionnaire emerges that 94% businesses claim to use local products; 88% train and employ Malawian as part of their corporate strategy; 69% say to be involved in charity and local development projects.
From what has emerged, the mostly small scale organisation of the tourism industry in fact has allowed the single businesses to easily involve the locals and create positive links with the local economy: “Actually, I think it’s probably easier for smaller lodges to be proactive in conservation as they don’t have to get everything authorised outside Malawi, like Wilderness [Safaris] do! I know of many lodges in Malawi that have been built almost exclusively from local materials using local
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workforces. Ngala Lodge on the lake, which recently was rebuilt, is a good example of this. Places around the lake such as Kaya Mawa on Likoma Island and Nkwichi Lodge are all very active with local community projects, supporting schools, clinics, etc.. […] Ntchisi Forest Lodge is a great example of how tourism helps the community. I visited it in October and found plenty of small businesses in the rural village funded there by the lodge, with tourists volunteering to help them and the lodge giving them things like chicken and pigs and buying back the eggs and meat for the lodge” (Malawi Travel Consultant interview, 2011).
4.6.2 Challenges and Future Prospects
However, infrastructural limits to the industry mainly imposed by the levels of poverty, makes it often difficult to allow an absolute sustainable management of tourism: “When we first came down to Africa we were quite idealistic. […] Then when you come here, and you see what is actually physically possible… The difficulties of running a business on a dayto-day basis. In terms of sustainability, it is incredibly difficult, like… to say: right, this is what we are gonna do with our business. How can we make sure we are sustainable with what are we doing, that we are only using sustainable supplies and using only people who are contributing… […] Firstly, there is a lack of choice, a lack of hotels that serve a certain number of people, certainly a lack of government support which comes from a lack of money, corruption, […] Instead of saying we are doing a wonderful work, well, we ask… how can we work together and simply survive within the industry here? In other places… like Kenya, and South America, [they are] trying to do lots and lots of fantastic things with ecotourism. And here… If you looked at it, the amount of people we employ, the people… the lodges we support… the whole community that surrounds us.. would not be able to survive if it wasn’t for that lodge. That one lodge with six beds being there. Employing these people, bringing money into the local community. But if they had to fill in some form about whether they are sustainable or whether they are subscribing to the rules of ecotourism, then we are probably fairly long from that. But it depends…really on what you think it’s sustainable. What you think is good tourism and bad tourism” (Responsible Safari Company interview, 2011).
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Therefore even though in the practice sustainable tourism is only gradually taking off, there are good foundations to achieve a steady future for ecotourism. Even where negative elements of tourism and community discontent have been reported, there is reason to believe that country is improving the levels of responsible tourism management overall. Remarkably, the MTMC also confirmed that one of the positive impacts tourism is having in Malawi is surely in terms of education and commitment to fight poverty: “[Tourism] it has the potential, you know, to bring in money into the economy, to educate, in both directions… I think, you know, people go to Malawi as tourists and fall in love with Malawi. That has to be good for the country. The number of people that are putting money into charity projects, that go back to do charitable work , because they have been out and visited the place is.. is phenomenally high. […] You know, a lot of people come back and say: I want to do something for Malawi! I want to do something positive.. As well as people who already have been out there and put their money in the local economy, while being out there” (MTMC interview, 2011).
In conclusion, if the current growth is sustained and continues to be managed sensibly, Malawi should increasingly benefit from its tourism development. The various responsible businesses active in the country are the biggest assets in making sure that the industry shall carry on to positively impact on the country’s economy and environment.
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5. CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS
The final chapter of this dissertation will first offer a short set of recommendations to sustain the on-going development in reference to the current opportunities for improving the destination’s potential. A final conclusion will then summarise the relevance of the present study and its findings from an overall perspective, offering possible stimuli for further studies on Malawi and tourism.
5.1 GENERAL RECCOMENDATIONS As general conditions to sustain the on-going development, the following suggestions should be considered to improve the status of tourism in Malawi:
The Department of Tourism should be reformed and promoted to be a single independent Ministry, with ever greater emphasis on tourism for the country’s development.
Financial problems should be overcome by the government: more transparency is required for the management of funds from the tourism levy and the activity of the anti-corruption bureau should be reinforced, possibly by an external board.
Improve infrastructures and services: increasing opportunities are available with foreign support (e.g. Chinese investments, international organisations). Development should however continue also in areas of the interior and should not concentrate only around the Lakeshore area. 99
Malawi should continue to attract foreign investors, but contemporarily should formulate policies and improve the business environment (ex. Tax reductions) for the development of local Malawian business and support local entrepreneurs.
Stakeholders involvement (particular with rural communities) in planning should be adopted regularly; locals should also have more power in decision-making processes.
Implement community-based management of tourism should happen where appropriate,
but
assistance
from
neighbouring
lodge-owners
is
also
recommended.
New regulations and much effective policies on drug trafficking and related problems are needed, also through increased scouting and patrolling activity on illegal activities.
Maximise and rationalise marketing efforts to promote the country as an holiday destination: while the MTMC should continue its activity for international marketing, joint efforts is also needed from the brand Visit Malawi produced by the Department of Tourism, to avoid too much dispersion of destination marketing efforts (ex. two existing websites, two brochures, separate stands in World Fairs). Potentially, the “Visit Malawi” brand should be handed over to the MTMC, while the Department should concentrate on other aspects of the business, like Public Relations and promotion in surrounding African regions (particularly in South Africa)
Possibilities for cross-promotions and collaboration with Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique should also be sought; however much greater emphasis should also
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be granted to Lake Malawi, which should be used to differentiate the country from the other African holiday destination in East Africa. 
Continue to improve the links between tourism and other sectors of the local economy, particularly where the public sector is involved.

More initiatives in comprehensive and holistic ecotourism projects, which can allow funding and support from international organisations like UNWTO.
5.2 CONSLUSIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER STUDIES This dissertation thesis can constitute a first preparatory study on the case study of Malawi as an example of current tourism development in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. Unlike other established African destinations in fact, Malawi still suffers from a number of development problems but ecotourism has been indicated as one of the resources to fuel the reduction of poverty levels. An introduction has provided details on the development situation and tourism performance of Malawi, as well as tourism development in the least developed countries as been introduced as statement of problem for Malawi. Despite its poverty, Malawi should increasingly seek opportunities to develop itself as an international tourism destination in Africa. The section on literature review has presented various researches concerning tourism and development particularly in those developing countries formerly known as Third World. The last decades have seen various debates on the effective role tourism can play in such 101
economies: evidence from the past has shown that in many poor countries tourism has been organised as an enclave industry, where the local economy receives only marginal benefits and thus become “dependent� on metropolitan economies and global tourism businesses during its tourism development process. In respond to this, sustainable and alternative development for tourism have been demanded by experts and scholars to impact positively on developing economies. However researchers themselves have shown little agreement on the practical approaches to be taken to develop ecotourism or responsible tourism. Particularly in Africa, specialists have proofed that methods to sustain tourism development should be fluid and vary from destination to destination, but should ideally involve and stimulate enterprises of the hosting community and generate finance to be reinvested appropriately, also through auxiliary development projects. As a matter of fact, results of alternative forms of tourism in Africa have shown mixed responses according to different countries. Another typical problem for many African destinations seeking sustainable development is for instance the recruitment of a skilled workforce. High levels of poverty and poor education constitute a challenge to allow local people to manage tourism and businesses have often to rely heavily on expatriates. In addition, theorists of sustainable development have also pointed out that alternative tourism should work in harmony with the hosting community and promote its participation in tourism to gradually create a long-term economic independence of the local population. Hence, community-based tourism is highly desirable, but might it might also have contradictory results if the community is not ready to self-administer the local resources to be used in tourism.
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The third section of this work has been focusing on the methodology followed to develop the original piece of research on tourism in Malawi. The study was conducted from the UK with the strong support of the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium (MTMC), where the researcher worked and conducted research for a period of approximately five months. The company support has been essential to gather fundamental contacts to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Besides the use of internal information and company documents in fact, firstly a mixed qualitative/quantitative questionnaire has been administered to tourism businesses of Malawi through the MTMC’s email server. To refine the qualitative aspect of the research, various interviews have also been conducted. Contacts were again mostly provided by the MTMC and consisted of people with experience on Malawi and tourism, such as travel specialists, tour operators, development experts and practitioners in Malawi’s tourism industry. Results from the research and their implications have highlighted various issues. Findings have confirmed that there is active concern for a long-term sustainability in most of Malawi’s tourism businesses and organisations; however, infrastructural and organisational problems related to development still constitute a challenge for the pursue of responsible tourism. General development has proceeded irregularly: though there is increasing investment in the private sector, particularly in the lodge and accommodation business, infrastructures and the public sector are slowing down development. However there has been strong foreign support for general infrastructures from South Africa, UK, the Netherlands and most recently China. Because of Malawi’s poverty, there is also foreign domination particularly from South Africa and UK in the tourism businesses; yet tourism is not organised as an enclave industry. 103
There are basically no global tourism brands from the Western world present in the country; besides a few big groups, businesses are small and mostly committed to sustainable development. Though oligopoly mostly from some South African businesses is present, this is not a threat because such companies, like Wilderness Safari, have shown to be very active in conservation and community projects. However, local Malawian businesses are still few and cannot yet compete with the most established companies. The government activities and organisation of tourism is one important limit for the industry: primarily, the department’s planning lacks of implementation, upgrade of facilities and it lacks of an adequate financial budget. In the case of National Parks, it is usually the private sector to improve the management through the bidding for concessions. Also, the country has had past problems of corruption and there is the possibility that it might become unstable because of recent political problems: these are certainly weak points for tourism development to be considered. As regards the employment of locals, data have seen that the tourism industry is helping to create job opportunities and even expatriate opening businesses employ mostly local people. However community participation and community-based tourism is not regularly taking place, though there is a good number of lodges which have established very good links with local enterprises and important businesses like Wilderness Safaris and the Responsible Safari Company are very active in development projects. Despite such efforts however, the Malawian’s perception of tourism still seems to be overall negative. The reasons behind seems to be some negative impacts that can be attributed to casual and low-cost travellers’ misbehaviour. In particular, accidents related to
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marijuana trafficking and sexual prostitution have said to be connected with tourism and efforts should be taken to limit such illegal activities. If the current situation is still uncertain, there are however good prospect for future ecotourism in Malawi. The country is at the crossroads of tourism development, but most international businesses are taking steps to recognise the importance of responsible travel and the private sector is very active, even though the business environment is not yet optimal. Being the country still a niche destination, expatriate’s business are mostly small and very committed to work together with Malawians to sustain development. For a long term effect, Malawian locals are increasingly learning to manage tourism business sensibly. Final recommendations have been given above to improve the situation and minimise the obstacles to development. Even though poverty levels remain high, there is reason to believe that Malawi can strongly benefit from sustainable tourism development in the short future. Community participation should increasingly have a leading role and as a result the locals’ perception of tourism should also improve to understand the new prospects offered by tourism. This dissertation has provided a first study on the current conditions of development for the tourism business in Malawi. Various issues have been mentioned and each of them would require further in-depth researches. Field researches based in Malawi are much needed to confirm the conditions for sustainable development. For instance, practical efforts from tourism companies and projects should be evaluated through environmental impact analyses. Economic analyses on the linkages between tourism and other sectors of the local economy should also be clearly defined and the rate of tourism leakage specifically assessed. Also, development specialists should analyse the various possibilities for 105
community-led tourism in the various area of the country and socio-cultural impacts on the local tribes should also be identified. Even though the country is moderately small, different areas have shown different realities of tourism development which require specific studies: further research might also prefer to focus on specific tourism areas and the sustainable management of the various attractions and national parks. Thus, the country can surely constitute a good case study for future researchers willing to deepen the current understanding of the various aspects of tourism development in Africa.
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APPENDIX 1: Email Questionnaire Format
Tourism in Malawi - Email Questionnaire We guarantee that all information provided will be kept confidential. Results will be disclosed only at aggregate level and will be used only for academic research within the University of Nottingham, UK.
* Required
Section One Company Name *
IF your business is a branch/subsidary of a bigger corporation, please specify the name of the parent company
Please indicate the main typology of your business * You can tick more than one answer
Accomodation
Transportation
Inbound tour operator (including safari operator)
Attraction/park management
Travel agent
Event management
Other:
Current numbers of employees at your company *
Year of establishment of your company *
Number of founders of your company *
Section Two 115
Current type of ownership of your business * Please tick as appropriate
Foreign (non-malawian)
Jointly owned
Malawian privately-owned business
Government-owned
Other:
If you answered FOREIGN can you please give details on the nationality of owners
If you answered FOREIGN can you please give details on where the company headquarters are
If you answered JOINTLY OWNED can you please give more details on the equity shares
Type of ownership of your business at the start-up of the company * Please tick as appropriate
Foreign (non-malawian)
Jointly owned
Malawian privately-owned business
Government-owned
Other:
Approximate number of employees at the start-up of the company *
Which of the following best describe the circumstances in which your business in Malawi was founded? * You can tick more than one answer
Family-run business
Foreign enterpreneur
Malawian enterpreneur
International group expanding in Malawi
Government-led operation
Joint Venture
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Other:
Your business mainly serves which kind of customers? * You can tick more than one answer
Holidaymakers
Business travellers
Europeans
Malawians
Africans
Business to business services
Other:
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Section Three To the best of your knowledge, the main tourism infrastructures of Malawi have been mostly * ex. road networks, airport facilities, hotel buildings, power and water supply for tourism services, tourist amenities Yes
No
Foreign-funded (European)
Foreign-funded (Other African countries)
Malawi Government-funded
Other (ex. Chinese, American)
If you ticked YES for OTHER please specify which countries
The tourism infrastructures and facilities involved in your business in particular have been * Yes
No
Foreign-funded (European)
Foreign-funded (other African countries)
Malawi Government-funded
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Yes
No
Other (ex. Chinese, American)
If you ticked YES for OTHER please specify which countries
Can you please indicate how much the following factors were an obstacle in the development of your business * You can rank each option on a scale from 1 (not penalising) to 5 (extremely penalising) 1 Not penalising
2
3
4
5 Extremely penalising
Difficulties in finding financial resources Difficulties in recruiting and managing human resources Difficulties in cooperating with other companies and private organisations Difficulties in cooperating with governmental organisations
Lack of infrastructures for business
Lack of external services for your business (ex. commercial, technological or legal support) Lack of support from public policies
According to your experience in the Malawi tourism business, can you please rank in order of importance the countries from which Malawi tourism gains more benefits in terms of foreign investments * ex. UK, South Africa, China, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Germany, Australia
Would you agree with the following statment: "Because Malawi has limited economical development and no overall domestic tourism, its tourism industry has been developed mainly by foreign enterpreneurs for foreign tourists". *
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
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Disagree
Strongly disagree
Space for additional comments on the question above
Section Four According to your experience, how many Malawian domestic tourism businesses would you say are active in the country? * Please tick one of the following
Many
Few
Almost none
Other:
(If you chose the first or second option) Do these businesses target only foreign tourists?
Yes
No, they also target domestic travellers (Malawians)
(If you chose the first or second option) How would you judge their business performance in general?
Very profitable
Profitable to some extent
Business performs poorly and struggles to survive
Businesses often face closure
Other:
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Is there any relevant form of domestic tourism in Malawi (Malawians travelling for business, leisure purpose or to visit friends and relatives)? * Open question
Section Five Can you give an estimated proportion of how many Malawians are employed full-time by your business? * My business does not employ Malawians
If your business DOES NOT employ Malawians can you please motivate why You can tick more than one answer
Lack of skilled workforce
Majority of foreign employees
Linguistic/cultural barriers
Health safety reasons related to infectious diseases
High levels of poverty
Other:
If your business DOES employ Malawians, can you please specify their job positions You can tick more than one answer
Tour guides
Handymen
Waiters
Chefs
Drivers
Custodians/caretakers
Other low-skilled labour
Actors in cultural re-enactment and performances
Attraction/event managers
Park guards
Sport activities responsibles
Front desk managers
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Other high-skilled managerial positions
Other:
In terms of human resources used in Malawi tourism businesses, would you agree with the following statement: "It is difficult to recruit locals mainly because of a lack of training to develop tourism-related skills. Malawi is not yet ready to manage tourism on its own." * Please tick one of the following
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
If you chose DISAGREE or STRONGLY DISAGREE please motivate your choice
In what way does your business impact on the local economy? * You can tick more than one answer
Training and employment of Malawians
Charity initiatives and projects
Revenue sharing schemes in favour of local enterprises
Use of local products
Use of local companies for the development of business services and infrastructures
Sell and promotion of local artifacts
Use of domestically produced materials
Organisation of trips to visit the rural communities
Incentives to promote tourists' involvement with locals
Use of sustainable facilities (ex. water recycling systems, solar panels, waste disposal systems)
Limits to direct transfers from airports to resorts
Leisure activties and entertainment in local establishments
Limits to the all-inclusive formula
Final payments are not made through a foreign travel agents or operator
Additional food provisioning services for the rural communities
Contributions to protect and conserve the wildlife and nature
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Other:
Space for any further comments and observations Please feel free to add any additional comments in the space below
END OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE Thanks for your precious cooperation. You can simply click on SUBMIT to confirm your answers. Your feedback will contribute to make a donation of 0.50 GBP to the Malawi Orphan Care Trust Fund.
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APPENDIX 2: Presentation Email attached to Questionnaire
1) Consortium members version: 2)
3) Non-consortium members version:
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2) Non-consortium members version:
124
APPENDIX 3: Summary of responses from Questionnaire
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APPENDIX 4: Interview Transcript Mr. Kelly White Face to face interview, Semi-structured, recorded on 30 June 2011 at the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium Office in Long Eaton, Derby, UK. The interview was transcribed within 48 hours. Approx. Length: 50 mins Note: R stands for researcher; K.W. stands for Mr. Kelly White.
R: So Kelly, Mr. Kelly White, when did your interest and involvement with Malawi start, if there was a moment.., how it developed through the years.. K.W.: Uhm, it started when I went on a… first trip to Malawi, which would have been in… [hesitates] the late 1990s. I don’t remember the exact year. That was.. R: Twelve, thirteen years ago? K.W.: Yeah, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, something like that.. R: But.. on holiday or..[urging him to speak] K.W.: No! It was a trip to do some research for a guidebook, so the guide I used to work with had a job request. A commission to write a guidebook on Malawi. He’d been out there before, I hadn’t. I went out to help him to research.. R: He called you? K.W.: Yeah, well I was working with him at the time, ehm.. [hesitates] R: What kind of work? On Malawi.. K.W. No, well, just general, he is primarily a travel writer and a photographer. And I was just helping him with that, helping him with his research, with travel writing. Just an administrative task, that kind of things. So we went out to Malawi to research for the book.. R: How long was the.. K.W.: Uhm, it was.. It would have been… about.. [hesitates] R: Six, five months, two months..? K.W.: No, no.. It was.. It was probably about four weeks. Three or four weeks. And yeah, we did research for the guide, which eventually got published . But while we were out there we got to know… R: The lodges.. K.W.: All the lodges, all the people.. and.. 131
R: And contacts.. you saw the potential..? K.W.: We saw the potential for Malawi as a tourist destination, that we could possibly realise… And so as we got to know these people, we sort of offered to help them with the marketing work, and, hum.. R: So they .. The idea came from you and John [John Douglas, the travel writer he mentioned], or from the lodges ..? K.W.: Mmm.. a bit of both! Really.. I think we.. we were sort of keen to help them. We could see that nothing was being done, so… We probably initiated it, but certainly there was immediate interest there. To help out with that. [pauses] R: But the company [Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium] was started a bit later, in.. 2002? K.W.: The..the consortium was .. yeah! What happened was that .. R: Was there something before..? K.W.: There was! What happened was that initially we started out and we did marketing for a combination of the Malawi Ministry of Tourism, which is a government agency, and a body called the Malawi Tourism Association, the MTA. Which is ..uhm.. a bigger body..of the private sector. They got.. That includes all the restaurants, all the car hire companies, all the small lodges, big lodges, everybody in Malawi tourism.. not everybody, almost everybody! So, they were more active then, in the past. When we actually had our first contract, was with MTA and the Ministry of Tourism, combined. R: Uhm.. What happened then? Why did you.. K.W.: After a couple of years, the Ministry of Tourism basically just stopped paying their bills. R: They..[hesitant].. went bankrupt?! K.W.: Noo, they are just very bad .. uhm I mean.. Yeah, they are just very bad at paying anyway. And then they just.. yeah.. They just stopped. Said “sorry, we can’t pay you anymore”. No real reasons particularly. Uhm.. And so at that point we approached.. oh, and the same with MTA. They got some funding to help, and that funding, it stopped. They, as a body, they didn’t really have the finance to pay. Basically at that point there were twelve particular companies, who said –the initial membersthey.. wanted us to carry on. So they approached us and said: “Look, if we get back together, can we keep it going?” And we said yes, that’s fine. We need to grow, ‘cause there is not enough, with twelve.. So that’s how we started. And that was yeah, 2002..2003, something like that. And then… it sort of grew and grew really.. partly is because.. I mean, the consortium always it has been focused on companies who seek international clients. ‘Cause obviously we are doing international marketing. So it’s not for.. people from the local market.. but for people who feel they have products good enough for the international market. Who want to push that market. And it has grown from twelve companies to forty companies. Partly of that is companies who already existed, and who realised they should belong and joined.. but also new lodges coming along. There has been development in the last ten years in Malawi, where new companies, new lodges have emerged. 132
R: Second question was about your assist.. erm, business partner. This.. John Douglas..? K.W.: Yes, That’s John Douglas, we started out.. He has always done bits and pieces in.. Tourism.. R: What did he do before.. before meeting with you? A travel guide? K.W.: EHm.. Yes, he has written a few books and articles. Runs a photo library. Uhm.. R. Specifically on Africa? Malawi..? K.W.: No, not specifically, he is a specialist on Africa, but.. the library covers Asia and Europe, Scandinavia particularly. And his books, and other things.. are diverse as well. And then as we started to develop what we were doing in Malawi, more has gone into that than in the writing and photography. R: But now it’s just you. K.W.: Now it’s just me. R: Since when? K.W.: Since October 2009, which is when John had a stroke, and he is not active in the business since then. He is still .. a partner.. R: He is old? How old..? K.W.: Yeah, he is old. [laughs] He is still a partner in the business, but not an active partner. Yeah, I am Geo Group now [the company that markets both Malawi and Swaziland]. R: What is your relationship with the Ministry of Tourism? You already said something. As a company, but also as an individual. K.W.: Uhm, Well I know, I have known people within the Ministry for many years, we have interacted with them. In the past we have worked directly with them.. Yeah, a couple of years I think it lasted. We have always maintained a relationship with them. At times we have worked on things together. We helped them with the World Travel Market set up, when they didn’t have a permanent office over here. So, we are a sort of.. in communication with them, but most of what we do now, we operate independently. R: In parallel? K.W.: Yeah, well the Ministry has never had much of a budget to be able to do proper marketing work for Malawi. That is one of the reasons why we are doing it. They are more active now than they have been in the past. But still, we are very well established in what we do, so particularly on the trade side of things – tour operators – we are the ones who got the reliable information. And the Ministry of Tourism has had a Tourism Office here for the last year or so, at the High Commission in the UK. Ian [the responsible for the Tourism Office in London] is already recognised on the trade, marketing side, there is not really much he needs to do. He needs to focus on the media side.. R: How long was that.. just one year? 133
K.W.: Just one year, he is been here for just over a year now. I mean, they have had offices here in the past, but.. About five years ago, the lady who was in post died unfortunately, and it has taken a few years to replace her. He is focused on media and organising press trips to raise awareness on Malawi. But Ian, who is in place, I’ve known him for ten, eleven years. He has been at the ministry of Tourism, at that time. We have a very good relationship, on a personal level. R: So let’s say: the problem with the Ministry of Tourism is like, a budget problem? K.W.: Fundamentally.. yes, yeah. R: Uhm.. Lack of experience, maybe? Change of management? I think they changed a bit.. K.W.: Yeah, Yes, I mean, for the last few years it has been fairly consistent, but certainly up to that point.. the staff would change. I mean, the Minister always changes, but fairly regularly. But even the sort of.. directory of tourism, you know.. there would be a new directory of tourism every couple of years, whereas the current one it has been there for a long time. R: Is it.. getting more stable? K.W.: Getting more stable, definitely. There used to be a system whereby they had… there was a tax, and that would give them money for their marketing, and that stopped a few years ago. That’s were the budget sort of .. they stopped getting the budget, so.. they needed.. They reintroduced it now, at a much lower level. Yeah, it used to be 5% or something. R: A.. business fee, or..? K.W.: On, on.. Your bill, you know, if you were staying there, you would have to pay.. I think it was more than that, I think it was 15%, ... They ditched it. Now there is a 1% levy that has been reintroduced. But there are also issues on what happens to that money, how effectively it is used. I mean, [recording is disturbed] . .but at the moment the people are doing better, doing more now than they have done in the past. R: As regards planning, tourism planning. I imagine they don’t do much.. K.W.: They.. they ..do. They do.. R: They rely on foreign.. K.W.: They rely on foreign aid, to fund.. so they have a tourism plan. A ten year plan. But that was written a few years ago now. But it’s aid money.. they can get consultancy.. R: And European consultants.. K.W.: European consultants. They come in and tell them what they should do in the tourism industry. What’s never happened though, is that .. there is always money for plans, never money for implementation. So often these plans exist as documents, and that’s it. The ability to implement is limited by funding. And also, I have to say, personally speaking, I think that the .. results of these plans and the conclusions are either extremely obvious things that people know, or are things that will never ever happen. So it is pointless anyway… Most of the developments in tourism in Malawi come from the private sector, as a response to demand. You know, people seeking opportunities. 134
The lodges that have been developed in recent times, are not there because of the tourism plan, they are there because people seeing opportunities and thought it was worth opening lodges. I mean, there are.. for example, in the National Parks, the development that has been there, that’s government initiative, because it’s concessions, and they have to give those concessions. R: Yeah, so the government owns, gives concessions to.. K.W.: Yeah. And for cultural reserves, there are now two lodges, they are only there because the government has given concessions for those lodges. R: Is it more active.. the government, is it more active on the conservation or ..the wildlife maybe? K.W.: Yeah, the department of National Parks and Wildlife is.. you know, they run the parks. So they have to do that, and they have to maintain the parks. And again, they [recording is disturbed] the funding, so the parks that are successful, in terms of conservation, are the ones where there is a strong private sector involvement. Lilongwe National Park is the best park in Malawi, but it is like that because of Wilderness Safari, who has been running the lodge there. Lodge and camp, for a number of years. They are very involved in the preservation of the park, they help, they assist the ministry of tourism [recording is disturbed]. The other park which is growing very rapidly is Majete, that has been taken over by Dutch[not clear] African Parks , who now runs the park for them , for the Departement of Parks. So that’s all on external money and external expertise. [pauses] R: Tourism policies. Is there something else the government should do? Something about.. concessions, might be considered part of policies. K.W.: Ehm [sighing] again, yeah, these plans get .. They use those plans to sort of formulate policies. But.. I have never seen a Ministry of Tourism policy. Document. Usually these things are usually fairly general, you know.. you know.. [laughs a bit] They have a mission statement, saying that they are going to promote Malawi’s tourism. Wonderful! You know, yeah, I have never seen it, I am not saying they don’t have them, they probably do, and certainly there is more evidence to suggest they have plans to go on certain fairs on the marketing side, and shows, and they are doing that, and they are publishing the directory as well. They are certainly active, more than they used to be. But I don’t know what their state policies are. R: Uhm [hesitating].. Do you think corruption.. I think you mentioned it in the past. In the government, widely speaking, is there a problem? Can it affect tourism? K.W.: In general, no, I don’t think it is. I think corruption in Malawi is not as bad as it is in some countries in Africa. There is some corruption for sure. Sure there is.. R: It regards more the financial sector, banks… K.W.: I mean, there is one particular instance involving Nyika, which had a damaging effect. But apart from that one-off .. Nyika was a concession.. is a park in the north. There was a problem, that was a bit of a one-off, really. Otherwise, I don’t think there is a particular problem, and I don’t think it affects tourism. Even ..things like crossing borders, having sort of bribe, immigration officials, …in Malawi, doesn’t really happen, not as much as in other parts of Africa.. R: Like, which.. other countries? 135
K.W.: In other countries it does. I am not gonna quote any particular places, but certainly.. People who have travelled across Africa will tell you that, you know, lot of immigration officials, expect a bit of..[not clear] to smooth the process. In Malawi it does not tend to be like that. [pauses] R: Talking about foreign-invested tourism businesses in Malawi. Invested from abroad. How much are other African countries important. Like South Africa, Tanzania, emerging African countries.. K.W.: In terms of other countries investing in Malawi? South Africa yes. Other than that, not really. R: No? Zambia? Neighbouring countries? K.W.: Not.. Uhm.. Not really, no. I mean, there are links. I mean, Robin Pope Safari [a lodging company of the consortium] began life in Zambia and it is now in Malawi, came over. It is, now, owned by a Dutch company. So, ultimately, the money is Dutch. R: Tanzania? K.W.: No, ... Because Malawi ..[hesitant] The commercial centre of Malawi is south, the links with Tanzania, so the north, are actually quite limited. It always surprises me how limited they are. Same in tourism terms. There isn’t a very great connection, between Malawi and Tanzania. In terms of investments, South African connections ... R: I think Wilderness Safari [one of the companies of the consortium] is a strong South African.. K.w.: It’s kind.. they are Wilderness Safari, is.. it covers a lot of countries in Southern Africa. Each company within each country has its own autonomy, it runs itself. They are a sort of a marketing collective. Certainly the central office is in South Africa. The headquarters is there. It’s a bit of a strange thing… It is not necessarily a big South African company that owns everything, it’s more of a collective, but with a central point in South Africa. And Mark Brons [not clear] who owns Land & Lake Safaris, he is South African, the guy who runs Barefoot Safaris is South African. So.. these guys are small, and they all lived in Malawi and probably they got Malawian passports right now, or they could do it if they wanted to. But they originate from South Africa. Kayak Africa is still based in South Africa. So, there are certainly some links there. R: But, for the rest, there is a lot of European.. K.W.: Still a lot of European.. Again, European ..uhm … R: Many of them are actually living there. K.W.: Yeah, absolutely! Absolutely, almost all. There ain’t lodges and companies in Malawi that are actually owned somewhere else, particularly. I mean, they are just.. R: Sometimes the money leaks out, goes back to the headquarter, but if people actually live there.. the spending is retained in the local… K.W.: They do, they do. They all have overseas accounts probably, they need them to operate in tourism… R: But there is a degree of spending in Malawi. 136
K.W.: Absolutely, absolutely. Very much so. The main, the vast majority of them are people who are based in and living in Malawi, and some are, you know, uhm.. Ulendo is 100% Malawian, Sunbird obviously is Malawian, that’s government-owned. It’s a big company. R: [impressed] Is it entirely government-owned? K.W.: It’s actually now on the stock exchange. So, I am not sure exactly the set up there. R: I think Sunbird [hesitant] .. is quite uhm… good.. K.W.: Yes, they are doing quite well. R: Strange to see.. a government-company doing well [laughs]. K.W.: [laughs] Yeah, they are doing ok. They used to have management companies that used to come in and run the hotels for them. Now they do it themselves. They have done quite well out of it. R: But with Air Malawi.. They, [the government] they didn’t.. K.W.: Noo, Air Malawi they are still.. Air Malawi.. [heistant] R: Is there.. Much more competition as well, or..? K.W. To a degree. Air Malawi only really flies domestically, so.. It makes its money on its Johannesburg routes. I mean, Air Malawi is a special case [laughs]. R: Right, small country, small company! K.W.: Yeah, a lot of Airlines, national airlines in Africa are struggled. Zambia ended up with no airlines, because they went bust. They used to have a couple but both went bust. I think Air Botswana went bust, you know.. Airline business is a difficult one. [pauses] R: As regards domestic tourism. Are there Malawians travelling?? How much is it developing? K.W.: [puffing] There are.. R: Because at the beginning we talked about the international market, the consortium, but we also talked about the local market. I was wondering if there are lodges that target South Africans, or even Malawians. How much they do it? K.W.: It’s not an area I know a great deal about. Because we are focused on the consortium members and they are primarily the international market. But there is a domestic market of a sort, I don’t think there is a big Malawian… You know, Malawian nationals do not certainly go on holiday locally in Malawi. A certain amount of that, and business tourism more than leisure tourism. But certainly there are lots of uhm… NGO workers, expats, out in Malawi, who are there long term, for a couple of years. They become part of the domestic market. And they go to, sort of, international standard lodges, but they are targeted on a local level. There is certainly an element in that. South Africa has always been, regionally, an expanding market for Malawi as well. Other than South Africa, again, the neighbouring countries don’t send a lot of genuine tourists, spending on any sort of level, really… Culturally, is not really.. Apart from the fact that Malawians are of course very poor. Can’t 137
afford to go on holiday. And it’s just not a concept as part of their culture, you know,.. [recording is disturbed]. R: Even Air Malawi, let’s say, operating internally, is probably taken mostly by NGOs, like... K.W.: Yeah, and business people. [phone rings] Business are always seen as a sort of [not clear].Ehm, I just grab that. R: Yeah. [short interruption]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------K.W.: Where were we? R: Domestic market. Ah, even Malawians moving inside the country.. K.W.: Businesses, yes, Businessmen, particularly between Lilongwe and Blantyre. But leisure tourism, among Malawians, is pretty limited. There is some, but not much. R: Uhm, let’s say a Malawian wants to open, well, a wealthy Malawian, wants to open a business. Are there any governmental funds that can help him to start the business? K.W.: No, not really. I think, there are supposed to be concessions on importing, things like that. So you might get duties relax ... that kind of things. I don’t know the details, to be honest, I think sometimes it is actually difficult to get those things applied... But they are supposed to be there. If you say, I am setting up a lodge, I need a new oven for my kitchen, hopefully, there is meant to be some sort of import concessions, but, getting those things... I think if you ask that question to guys who actually run the lodges, they will probably tell you that is impossible. Quite difficult.. I think you are pretty much on your own. R: Malawians running business? Ulendo.. K.W.: Ulendo is Malawian and Sunbird is Malawian, but most of the other members in the consortium ain’t Malawians, or certainly not originally Malawians. R: Non-members, as far as you know? K.W.: The more.. uhm.. the more you sort, you go into a sort of small..uhm.. guesthouse in Lilongwe, for local business people, that tends to be Malawian. R: Or.. Backpackers? K.W.: Possibly some of the backpackers. Some of… even the backpackers lodges tend to be expatriate... R: Former backpackers. K.W.: Exactly! Even though they are operating at a lower level of the market, it is still an international market. But I think those that serve purely the domestic market and the business things, yes. Those are Malawians. The car hire companies, both tend to be..
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R: But is there something moving, for the future? K.W.: I think, I think.. yes. But slowly. I mean, if you look at the… Although the ownership of most of the consortium members is not necessarily Malawian, all the staff are. Uhm..[hesitating] not quite true, but a lot of the staff, are Malawians. Lots of these people come through the company and so, given time, they now have knowledge and the skills to be able to do things. Whereas a generation ago, there weren’t any Malawians with any knowledge and skills in tourism, now there are. To say, the potential, in the future, for these people to make a career.. You know, there are some. It’s not very much [recording is disturbed]. R: What about community participation in tourism, for Malawi. Involvement with local communities? Do you think it is a challenge, because we are talking about a very poor country. K.W.: I think it’s very strong at the moment already. It is. It is something that is very much led by the lodges, and the expat owners of the companies. But there is a huge, almost all, almost all of the lodges involve the local communities to a greater or lesser degree. First and foremost, they are probably going to be the biggest employer in the area, and they all try to employ locally as much as they possibly can. Secondly, they are all involved in local development projects. Some of those will very much be tied into the lodge, so they will encourage...uhm.. for example Luwawa Forest Lodge, when he set up he talked to all the villages around him, and got them all to set up this little.. sort of mini industries, so one villages, he suggested, should focus on making honey, and then another village would focus on making jewellery, and all of that thing is sold to people in the lodges. So they’ll encourage that kind of little local industry that helps feed into the lodge, while the lodge feeds out to those industries. And also, other things, like building schools.. And using part of their profits, or using visitors to help fund the building. R: Are they mostly European-owned, or also South African-owned? K.W.: Yeah, both, pretty much everybody is involved to some degree or another. And again, the… community appreciates the positive value of tourism and be involved with it. Village visits is very much a part of everywhere in Malawi. You know, it’s the villagers who benefit from that, from those directly, and I think that sort of cultural exchange is important as well, because it is educating visitors about Malawian culture and what’s going on… And I think that’s also, just as it is with animals, you know, they are part of the conservation. It is based on experience. People saying “hey, I went to see these things and I think that they should , you know, be looked after…” And it’s sort of, similar things… that sort of cultural interaction, where people have met with Malawians and seen how they live, seen their sort of daily life, I think helps to have greater respect for them. R: Education… K.W.: Exactly… It’s fundamentally education… it means that, you know, they go back with a more positive view of Malawi, Malawians. You know, I think that benefits everybody. R: Yes, to keep it sustainable, that is also one of the issue I will look into.. So, yeah.. Linkages with the economy? You talked about projects, selling products to tourist..[hesitant]?
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K.W.: Uhm, [hesitant] yeah… There is a sort of.. Uhm … There is even somebody… I don’t really know how to.. be specific [recording is disturbed]. For every, every bed in the lodge, in Malawi, it supports I think, they claim it to be 14 local Malawians. So that’s, that’s people employed directly in the lodge. The fact that Malawian society it is very sort of family based wealth, just because it’s one person, employed there, the go back to their villages sort of share the wealth. That’s just the employment, but then also there is the knock-on effect on that sort of local, you know, the artists selling there.. R: Small local enterprises.. K.W.: Very much so. Yeah, as well as there have been direct, you know, funding into those things. I think most people have seen that the important thing is to generate a local economy that can be self-sustaining. Yeah, that isn’t dependent. Some guys offering little local tours. Even the village visits: that is something they can get money for… creating handicrafts…. Uhm.. all those sort of.. growing vegetables… weaving as well. On Likoma Island [in Lake Malawi] there is a textiles company, they supply textile into the lodges. R: But I think still in planning, and again, this maybe the government weakness, the communities are not involved, as stakeholders, probably. K.W.: Not in terms of consultation, no, I don’t think they are particularly. R: Planning… probably…. I mean, if they want to open a lodge or something.. It might happen that they have to displace tribes or something?? K.W.: Mah, no.. uhm… R: In the past, probably.. K.W.: In the past that kind of thing might have happened, but these days not, no. There is still.. because local chiefs… I don’t know the exact set up, but certainly you can’t just go and claim a bit of land, and the government just can’t go and give it to you. You gotta talk to the local chiefs, if you want to set up a lodge on some of their land. R: There is a power structure within the rural communities? K.W.: There is, there is. So, you got to go and get to know the local people before you just sort of go in and do things like that, so they are involved. I mean, you know, you find that if you go to any of these people… If you go in the local communities with the local lodge owners, they are treated like chiefs. The two guys who built and set up Kaya Mawa on Likoma island [a luxury lodge], were adopted by the local chief, you know, like if they were sons. R: They were originally… K.W.: They are gone now, they sold Kaya Mawa a couple of years ago. But they were the ones who built it. R: Which one? [The researcher looks for Kaya Mawa in the brochure and Kelly indicates it to him]
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K.W.: Anyway, if you sort of… They do get very involved with the local communities.. There isn’t… I mean… the local community and the rural of communities obviously don’t know anything about tourism or lodges or anything like that. They are not sort of involved in decision-making processes, things like that, but certainly they have to be consulted if somebody wants to come and use their land! Then.. They are a part of that. R: And.. in general, the tourism impacts in Malawi, would you say… Positive? Some negative sides? Both… Mostly positive? K.W.: I think.. You know.. Absolutely positive. I mean, purely .. [pauses] R: Because you know, with tourism you can also make a lot of harm sometimes! Usually… we are not talking about a mass tourist destination, but it has to be managed sustainably. K.W.: It has to be managed sustainably. That’s true. But I think, you know, I am trying to think of some negatives and I can’t. Uhm… I am sure there are, one or two… I am.. Some local person who has agreed [not clear] that something has happened. But generally speaking. Because there hasn’t been mass development, I am certainly not aware of any incidents or villages being kicked out of their land or.. anything like that. I dunno of any. In terms of conserving the environment, I think without tourism, it would be very very difficult to maintain the parks, the reserves, because the population pressure in Malawi is huge, it is a very densely populated country. So any sort of.. land.. is very highly valued. And you can’t just say, “this is a wildlife reserve, don’t touch”. Unless something comes out of that reserve. Something positive. And tourism is .. that. You know, that’s the way you gotta generate some income from those reserves, otherwise you know, you can’t justify them. It has to happen like that. So… overall positive. It has the potential, you know, to bring in money into the economy, to educate, in both directions… I think, you know, people go to Malawi as tourists and fall in love with Malawi. That has to be good for the country. The number of people that are putting money into charity projects, that go back to do charitable work , because they have been out and visited the place is.. is phenomenally high. Nothing more than the people who have been out as visitors and come back with a positive view of Malawi and want to help Malawi. I think that is sort t of…uhm… R: Ultimate target… K.W.: Yeah, I think it’s sort of … hidden resource of tourism, really.. Doesn’t really get looked at, particularly. You know, a lot of people come back and say “I want to do something for Malawi! I want to do something positive..” As well as people who already have been out there and put their money in the local economy, while being out there. And I think that is important.. Tourism was identified in the… Millennium Development Plan, or something, was identified as a sector of the economy that had the potential to do well for Malawi, because Malawi depends on tobacco fundamentally. And it is not a good thing to be dependent upon. While tourism, there are certain countries in the world were tourism is the primary industry and in terms of what Malawi has to offer, that sort of potential to be there… We don’t want to be a mass destination, but tourism certainly, there is a long way it could go. Still lots and lots of potential for it. And it could be bringing in even more money into the economy, and at the same time conserving the reserves and, you know, the environment, wildlife, and the local communities. 141
[long silence] R: But before the 90s there wasn’t much tourism. K.W.: There was some, you know.. Some of these.. The Club Makokola has been around for some time, but mostly there was just the lake and a lot of South Africans coming up on the lake… R: Yeah, 1984 I think.. I’m not sure.. [referring to the date of opening of Club Makokola] K.W.: Right [laughs]. Not a lot. You know, developing since then, much more. R: Probably also the fact that it became a democratic.. a.. K.W.: Oh yes, yeah. That makes it a difference. R: All the data I saw, the starting point of the curve [meaning the graph with number of arrivals through the years] was 1994, or something… K.W.: Right, ok. R: I think they didn’ t even make a count before. K.W.: No, no. Probably, yeah.. I mean that would be.. And of course, you know, it helps.. there is a knock-on effect, and you can’t deny it.. of South Africa… coming out of Apartheid. And becoming a huge, I mean… R: Yeah, the all of Africa… K.W.: Yeah, the all of Africa gets a boost from that. I am sure, a number of tourists go to Malawi... It’s not their first visit to Africa.. and they have been to South Africa, and then they want to go further a field, and obviously when South Africa was under Apartheid rule, there weren’t anything like the same number of people going out to South Africa. That’s definitely, a knock-on effect. Positive.. [pauses]. R: One last question. If you can think of any critic, or worries, that you could move against the current or future of tourism in Malawi? K.W.: Uhm.. [looks uncertain, thinks about the answer] R: If you can make a critic, or any worries, something that could be improved..[encouraging him to speak].. Concerns.. K.W.: Ehm.. It would be good…[pauses] I mean.. [long pause] Concerns… I would say, I think it’s important that Malawi stays politically stable. And whilst I am reasonably confident that will happen, at the moment, it’s… you know, there are some murmurings and things that are happening that aren’t very good. You know, the current president is going a bit down the dictatorship line. I don’t think he will get all the way down it, but it needs to stay politically stable. If it doesn’t, the whole thing crashes again… Uhm, That’s a sort of slight worry in the back of our mind. In terms of development, the more it can improve the game viewing, the better it will do. That’s for sure. Because that’s one weakness in terms of other countries in Africa and it’s the one thing that 142
everyone expects from Africa. So…if it stays politically stable and if it manages to get a few more big cats in the country, then I think there’s nothing to stop us doing really well. R: Also for sustainability, you think it’s… K.W.: I think the way it’s being done at the moment, I think, I don’t see that tourism at the moment is anything but sustainable, the involvement of the local communities is there, is very much part of everything that happens, it got its parks, and whilst there will always be population pressures on those parks, at the moment… they seem to be doing enough to maintain themselves. Again, if anything… there is now new lodges, and Nkhotakota… The fact that AfricanParks in Majete… is running Majete, that probably South African Wilderness is doing things in.. all those kind of private companies coming in, to the parks, I think it’s all good, and seems to be going in the right direction. Robin Pope Safari is coming into the country, I think it’s all positive, really. R: Yes. But access is still a problem. K.W.: Access is still a problem, definitely. No, I mean, right! If you said.. If you gave me three wishes, wave a magic wand and improve things.. then yes, I would say direct flights. More predators in the parks, and a guarantee of political stability. R: Could you… As regards the big cats… Could you get some? I mean… K.W.: Yeah, it’s, it’s… I don’t know enough about the sort of… practicalities. But of course you have to have… R: The habitat is okay? K.W.: The habitat is okay, you have to have… you have to have… food. So there’s got to be certain levels of… everything else. Carrying capacity. That’s the phrase. There’s got to be the carrying capacity. You can’t just say, let’s stick a lion, because it might not work out. But provided that is practical to do it, then they can be bought, yes, but people have to go and buy them, pay for them… And you gotta know this. In Majete, that’s what’s happening. They are bringing in leopards, next year. And they will be bringing lions. It’s showing that it can be done. And hopefully you get… R: The environment is ready… K.W.: I am sure they know what they are doing. I wouldn’t dream of telling them otherwise. It surprises me, that they are able to do it. But they obviously have a plan, they wouldn’t do it without a plan. And it’s being done by the right people, I mean they got… You know, people who know what they are doing, with these things… R: One more thing about sustainability. The tour operators you are in connection with, they are all… niche… small, I mean… K.W.: Uhm, most are… R: I mean, there ain’t Thomson or some… Thomas Cook going to Malawi, or…? Like… Is it not profitable enough, for Thomas Cook?
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K.W:: Ehm, well… Generally, some of the big ones, some of the bigger ones, not the really big mass market ones like Thomas Cook… But for example Page and Moy, they are relatively large ones, and more mass market, they just introduced a Malawi programme, but… bad timing, ‘cause they have done it in a time of economic difficulty, global economic difficulty. It’s sort of price point that’s very high for their usual market, and so it’s not sold well enough, and so they are going to ditch it. Uhm… Voyage Jules Verne, which is part of Kuoni, which is another… big, they had a Malawi programme for a few years, when they started it sold very well, that’s tailed off a bit… The… R: They left? K.W.: They’re still doing it, still doing it. But they may not be, it’s tailed off a little. But these big mass market companies, they need it cheap and need lots of people who are going, and if they don’t get lots of people going within a year… they ditch it. So… R: You never tried, anyway, not even in 2003 or before… [when there were still some direct flights to Malawi] K.W.: Not Thomson. They just don’t go into those kind of areas, really, I mean… If you find’em selling South Africa… R: Yeah. Are they going to South Africa? K.W.: Some of those are, but even that, they sell it as a sort of a specialism. There will be, there, far away shores, or you know… They won’t just stick on the shelf, next to the Costa del Sol. You know, there’s no point doing it. But, I think, Malawi is quite stretched for those kind of companies. And they demand volumes… High volumes… If they don’t get them they don’t sell it. So… I think.. obviously, things like the advent of the internet makes things a lot easier. Companies sell a lot of destinations, because whereas in the past it cost them to put it in the brochure, doesn’t cost as much to put it on the internet, stick it there and see what happens to it. But the bigger mass market ones, I mean, they still produce lots and lots of brochures… And so every page has to justify it, the fact that is in the brochure. If a page cost them tens of thousands just in printing copies and it is not generating tens of thousands, then it goes, they put one that is generating. That’s why it is difficult to get those big companies. And Malawi just doesn’t have the profile, doesn’t have the numbers going in. R: And some… well, maybe Tanzania? K.W.: I think, I think South Africa and Kenya are the big ones. R: Kenya, yeah, big ones… K.W.: Yeah. Kenya and South Africa stand head and shoulders above pretty much everywhere else. And then the others, you know… Yeah, Tanzania is in the second level, I would say… Namibia, Botswana. They are all in that sort of second level. Zambia is growing, in recent years. And Malawi is a level down from that, still. In terms of, sort of numbers… and interest… R: But mass operators, are they selling Tanzania or Botswana..?
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K.W.: Some, some will be. To an extent. Some parts are more popular, so well-known places. The bigger mass market, if they are selling Africa, the first place that are selling is Kenya and South Africa. And some will be selling only Kenya and South Africa, or only one of them. It’s a different thing, it’s not their market so much, it’s still long-haul. The cost is more… I mean, even Kenya and South Africa are expensive destinations to get to, in comparison to some of the sort of Far East destinations. You know, flight costs down to… Africa, for some reasons, it’s just more expensive... You know, you can do a two week holiday in Sri Lanka for 500 quid or something like that. You can’t fly to South Africa for 500 quid [laughs]. You just don’t fly… R: Ok. [pauses]That’s it. K.W.: Good! [laughs] R: Thank you very much. K.W.: You’re welcome.
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