Africa, as a continent, has lots to offer tourists from the Western World- Breathtaking landscape, miles of games reserves full of large wild animals, tropical climate, culture, art, affordable pricing ... Malawi, while it does have all of these things, cannot seem to get itself into the game. South Africa gets roughly 9 million tourist annually, Malawi only about 700,000. Yes, it is a smaller country; but it is safer, more affordable, and the people are amazingly accommodating. In fact, they will give you directions even if they do not know the way. One challenge is that the only successful businesses I have found are owned by expats, and when turned over to locals- they always seem to drop two or three stars in quality. I do not blame the Malawians for this, but rather the expats that leave a business to people with no concept of how to run it properly, and the government for not training entrepreneurship or business in its schools. How is someone supposed to make a budget without getting past standard six in school, or accommodate the needs of Westerners without understanding the level of luxury which they are accustomed to? I recently travelled to Nkhata Bay and found the lodges which I frequented in my Peace Corps days were either no longer running or run down. A once safe and vibrant volunteer lodge was opening the door to drunk beach boys who hassled us to smoke weed with them and buy them drinks. Another one was completely closed after the owner moved back to her home country. I heard from locals that it went through several owners after she left- each one less qualified than the one before - and eventually just stopped running altogether. The only functional lodges and restaurants I saw were still in the hands of expats, who are fantastic people, but shows just how little Malawians get to benefit for the beauty of the land they were born on. Even the game reserves, where simply having hippos and lions sells itself, don't seem to be able to stay afloat. Vwaza Marsh, has changed ownership four times in the last six years and seems to barely do well enough to pay the guards. Additionally, all of the game reserves are under constant threat of poachers- due to the inability to have enough rangers or outreach programs to keep the reserves protected. So, even those places where the animals are- may one day cease to have that because of poor management. There are some game reserves doing well (mostly in the South) but they are once again run by the expat community. The only Malawians that do benefit from tourism seem to be the artists. There are many fantastic people in Malawi who paint, make wood carvings, or sow clothing from local fabric. All of these things are very labor intensive, but they can bring in more money than most jobs in Malawi could ever provide. The shame is that these artists have very few venues through which they can get their products to tourists. In Mzuzu there is no culture or art market so the artists hang out by the fancy grocery store and hassle any mzungu they see passing by. They are not bad people, they do not wish to beg or steal money, they just want to sell some art so that they can buy food or pay their children's school fees. On the other hand, if they were to learn salesmanship and be provided with a space which tourists could browse freely- then they could be self-sustaining and respected for the craftsmen they are. I remember in Ghana I went to several markets which were full or artists making Kente Cloth or wood carvings. They were in the Lonely Planet books, visited by thousands of tourists annually, and became sustainable in tourism economies. So what is Malawi to do? How can the people of Malawi begin benefiting from the one obvious resource they have - tourism?
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Bonnie HarveyCurrently working in northern Malawi as Programs and Evaluations Coordinator for Temwa Archives
June 2019
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