International arrivals hit 2.3 million in 2025 and government wants 3 million by the end of this year, with a billion-dollar industry by 2031. But two ministers have used “a billion dollars” to mean two different things five years apart, and the country’s peak travel season now overlaps with a general election.
By Zambian Economist Analyst
Zambia recorded 2.3 million international tourist arrivals in 2025, up from 2.2 million in 2024. The Ministry of Tourism wants 2.5 to 3 million this year, and has set its sights on a billion-dollar tourism industry by 2031. Vice President Mutale Nalumango, speaking for President Hakainde Hichilema at the June launch of the Zambia Travel and Tourism Expo, used the same figure for a nearer target: over 1 billion US dollars in tourism revenue by the end of this year.
Those are two different numbers wearing the same label, five years apart, from two different officials. That gap matters more than either number on its own, because it is the clearest sign of how far tourism policy still is from a single, costed plan, at exactly the moment government is asking Zambians to treat the sector as a genuine alternative to copper.
The timing has a second complication. Zambia votes on 13 August, which falls squarely inside the June to October dry season, the same months that bring the highest water flow at Victoria Falls, the best game viewing in South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi, and the bulk of the country’s international arrivals. An industry built on getting foreign visitors to move confidently around the country is being asked to do that in the same weeks as a national election.
The numbers in one place
| Year | International arrivals | Direct employment | Tourism budget | Non-tax revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Recovery phase | – | K303.7 million | – |
| 2023 | – | 159,028 | – | – |
| 2024 | 2.2 million (+35%) | – | – | – |
| 2025 | 2.3 million | 164,800 | K1.3 billion | K319.5 million |
| 2026 (target) | 2.5–3 million | – | K1.53 billion | $1 billion (VP Nalumango’s revenue figure) |
Domestic tourism grew alongside the international numbers. Visits to national parks, museums and heritage sites passed 562,000 in 2025. Direct employment in hotels, travel agencies, airlines, restaurants and leisure activities rose from 159,028 jobs in 2023 to 164,800 by the end of 2025, a gain of under 6,000 jobs across two years against a headline unemployment rate still running above 10 percent nationally.
Two officials, two “billion-dollar” targets
Read the two statements side by side. In January, the Zambia Daily Mail reported the Ministry of Tourism’s budget had grown from K303.7 million in 2021 to K1.3 billion in 2025, with K1.53 billion approved for 2026, alongside a narrative of tourism as the sector that can spread growth beyond the mining belt. In June, at ZATEX, the Vice President put a headline figure on it: over 1 billion US dollars in tourism revenue by the end of 2026. Weeks earlier, at Africa’s Travel Indaba, tourism officials had described the same billion-dollar figure as a 2031 target for the size of the industry, not a single year’s revenue.
A revenue figure and an industry-size figure are not interchangeable, and reaching either from a base that generated K319.5 million in non-tax revenue for the ministry in 2024 is a very different claim depending on which one is meant. Neither statement came with a bridge showing how arrivals, average spend per visitor and length of stay combine to reach a billion dollars in either timeframe. Zambia’s international tourism receipts were last reported by the World Bank at 820 million US dollars in 2019, before the pandemic reset the base entirely. Getting a clear, single, sourced number from government on which billion-dollar target is actually being tracked would do more for investor confidence than either announcement did on its own.
Why tourism is the chosen diversification vehicle
The logic behind the push is sound, even where the numbers need tightening. Copper accounts for over 70 percent of Zambia’s export earnings and is the country’s main channel for foreign exchange, which means a single commodity price move still sets the direction of the kwacha. Agriculture depends on a rainy season that failed badly as recently as 2023/24. Tourism offers something neither of those does at scale: labour-intensive jobs distributed well outside Lusaka and the Copperbelt, in Livingstone, Mfuwe, Kafue and the Lower Zambezi, and revenue in hard currency that does not require a single mine to open or a single harvest to succeed.
Government has backed that logic with money. The World Bank-supported Green, Resilient and Sustainable Tourism Development Project is financing infrastructure and destination management. Disbursements to community resource boards and traditional leaders, the local structures that share in wildlife-based tourism revenue, rose 132.2 percent and 163.6 percent respectively year on year, according to ministry figures reported in January. ZATEX 2026 drew 150 exhibitors, including 24 small and medium enterprises, and 40 international buyers, up from 103 exhibitors and 28 buyers the year before, a genuine sign of a maturing domestic supply side.
The bottlenecks the target doesn’t mention
Three structural constraints sit underneath the arrival numbers, and none of them move on a one-year budget cycle.
Concentration is the first. Zambia’s tourism product is still overwhelmingly Victoria Falls and a handful of national parks. Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport in Livingstone has good regional connections to Lusaka, Johannesburg and Nairobi, but Zambia still competes for the same falls-based visitor as Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Airport on the opposite bank, and most of that competition is decided by which side has the easier flight connection and the smoother visa experience that week.
Visa cost is the second, and it cuts both ways. The KAZA Univisa, the joint Zambia-Zimbabwe visa that lets a traveller cross for Victoria Falls on both sides and day-trip into Botswana, has held its price at 50 US dollars for 30 days, still one of the better-value regional travel products. But Zambia raised its standalone visa fees for 2026, and tour operators in Lusaka and Livingstone have had to update pricing packs mid-season to absorb the change. Neither move is disqualifying on its own. Together they show a visa regime still being adjusted in real time rather than locked in as a stable input investors can plan a five-year hotel development around.
Seasonality is the third, and the least discussed. A dry-season, falls-and-safari product concentrates most of the year’s revenue and most of the year’s casual and SME employment into roughly five months. The jobs growth reported by the ministry, from 159,028 to 164,800, is a national annual figure; it says nothing about how thin that employment gets between November and May, when the same lodges, guides and craft traders that carried the sector through the dry season have far less to sell.
An election falls in the middle of peak season
None of the government’s tourism messaging this year has addressed the fact that the country’s highest-traffic travel months now contain a general election. That is not a reason for alarm; Zambia has held competitive elections without disrupting international travel before. But it is an operational fact that lodges, tour operators and airlines serving the Livingstone and Lower Zambezi circuits have to price into August bookings regardless of whether government mentions it.
International travel advisories around election periods tend to be cautious rather than restrictive, and Zambia’s recent election cycles have not produced the kind of unrest that triggers travel warnings from major source markets. The more practical risk sits closer to home: fuel and transport logistics during a national vote, temporary staff being pulled from tourism jobs into election-related work, and a domestic travel and conferencing market, already a meaningful share of Livingstone’s hotel occupancy, that typically goes quiet around a poll. Operators who built August itineraries without a contingency plan for election week are managing that now, not planning for it.
Business, investor and policy implications
For tourism operators, the immediate task is separating the two billion-dollar targets in their own planning and asking government, directly, which one applies to which year, since financing decisions, staffing plans and marketing budgets should not be built on a number nobody has actually defined.
For investors evaluating hospitality or aviation projects, the more useful entry point than the headline arrival figures is the ZATEX exhibitor data: a rising count of Zambian SME tourism suppliers, twenty-four of them at the 2026 expo, is a better proxy for whether the domestic supply chain can actually absorb three million visitors than any single ministerial announcement.
For policymakers, the case for tourism as a genuine third leg alongside copper and agriculture is real, and the World Bank financing and community revenue-sharing growth are evidence the sector is being built rather than just marketed. What is missing is the same discipline the government has applied elsewhere in its economic messaging this year: one reconciled target, one baseline, and a public account of how the country gets from 2.3 million arrivals and 820 million US dollars in pre-pandemic receipts to whichever billion-dollar figure is the real one.
Key takeaways
- International arrivals reached 2.3 million in 2025; government targets 2.5 to 3 million in 2026 and a billion-dollar industry by 2031.
- The Vice President separately cited a billion dollars in tourism revenue by the end of 2026, a different claim on a much shorter timeline that has not been reconciled with the 2031 figure.
- Direct tourism employment grew by under 6,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025, concentrated in a roughly five-month dry season.
- The 13 August election falls inside Zambia’s peak tourism season, an operational reality tour operators are pricing into August bookings without clear government guidance.
- ZATEX exhibitor growth, not the arrival headline, is the better signal of whether Zambia’s domestic tourism supply chain can support the government’s targets.
This article is part of our Zambia Economy 2026 series, which unpacks the numbers behind the headlines on growth, trade and diversification. See also our analysis of how economic diplomacy can drive diversification beyond copper, and our guide to how Zambian businesses should plan for the election period.
Primary sources: Ministry of Tourism figures as reported by the Zambia Daily Mail, Africa-Press and ATTA (2026); World Bank international tourism receipts data; Zambia Department of Immigration KAZA Univisa guidance.
