Zambia’s Licensing and Regulation Department has been gaining ground since its transfer to the Zambia Tourism Agency (ZTA) from the Ministry of Tourism and Arts.

The milestones achieved by the ZTA in the tourism enterprise licensing section include the following:

• A total of 948 tourism enterprises being licensed.
• A sum of just over K452.59 million (€37.9m) generated from the tourism enterprise licensing exercise.
• The recruitment of six new employees for the licensing and grading department.

For the regulations function, the following have been achieved:

• Recruitment of assessors – 21 grading assessors drawn from the industry will be engaged on a part-time basis, in addition to three full-time assessors.
• The training of assessors – to ensure effective delivery and implementation of the grading process, the assessors will undergo an intensive training programme in two phases before being deployed to conduct assessments.

The ZTA has already partnered with the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa to offer technical skills training of the assessors. Apart from the training, the ZTA is currently exploring the possibilities of procuring a grading software program. This will bring Zambia in line with other destinations, such as South Africa.