Tourism Board Chairman Timothy Mushibwe says the survey has also proved that the current brand that Zambia is using to market itself as one of the best tourism destinations is not effective.

Mr Mushibwe said this at a briefing to announce the launch of a new project that will be conducted by National Tourism Board and the Tourism Council of Zambia with the support of school of Hotel Administration department of Cornell University of the United Kingdom.

He said the school has been brought on board to package and design persuasive and attractive catch lines to compell more people to visit Zambia.

Mr Mushibwe observed that the current Zambia the Real Africa brand did not contribute to its marketing efforts but has instead left misconceptions among Zambia’s potential tourists.

And Cornell school of hotel administration marketing Associate Professor Rob Kwortnik says a six member student delegation from the school is embarking on new ways to analyze every facility that Zambia has and how best to market them.

He says there is need to devise a brand that will set the country apart if Zambia is to sustain its tourism market which attracts about 850 thousand tourists per year as compared to other African states.

Mr Kwortnik however said that the picture portrayed of Africa by the western media as a poor, dilapidated and war tone continent remains a barrier to Zambia’s attainment of its targeted market for tourism.

Meanwhile the National Tourism Board says it is putting in place mechanisms to attract visitors that will be attending the 2010 FIFA world cup tournament in South Africa starting in June.

Source: Zambia Watchdog (http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/2010/03/24/survey-europeans-dont-know-country-called-zambia/)

Valuable advice as we embark on an early morning walking safari in Zambia’s 2,500-square-mile Lower Zambezi National Park.

Our base is Old Mondoro Bush Camp, a cluster of rustic canvas tents set in a grove of acacia trees overlooking the Zambezi River’s maze of hippo- and elephant-inhabited islands and channels.”Alone, we’re vulnerable,” explains Pereira, a former South African park ranger who manages Old Mondoro with his partner, Lana de Villiers. “But as a group, we look larger and more threatening. So we stay together. And if we must, we fight together,” he says.

I glance at our Zambia Wildlife Authority scout, Reuben, clutching his 375mm hunting rifle, and hope he’s a crack shot.

As my quickening pulse indicates, Zambia on foot is Africa at its wildest, still undiluted by the mass tourism threatening to overwhelm game reserves in Africa’s Big Three safari destinations: Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. Zambia, an oft-overlooked southern country and home to some of the continent’s largest game reserves, is emerging as a choice destination among safari connoisseurs.

“Zambia is for the more adventurous traveler, the person who wants a really authentic bush-camp safari,” says Leora Rothschild, a South Africa-raised safari specialist based in Denver. But well-heeled travelers need not worry about roughing it in the bush, she adds. Camps like Old Mondoro offer the level of high-end accommodation, gourmet cuisine, pampering and other luxury trappings safari snobs have come to expect.

What Zambia doesn’t have are telephoto-toting crowds swarming a snoozing lion. Or afternoon game drives that feel like Land Rover rush hour, as have become common in some East and South African parks. Instead, this comparatively unexplored country offers plenty of opportunities to get out of the vehicle and feel the African soil beneath your feet on a walking safari, a Zambian specialty that many consider the ultimate African bush experience.

This morning I’m certainly walking with a wealth of experience. Pereira and Reuben know the animals, how to read their behavior, and what to look out for.

“In the daytime, man is the main predator, so you are very unlikely to be hunted then,” Pereira says, adding that even the big predators such as lion, cheetah and hyena avoid humans.

“But if you walk around at night, you’re in big trouble,” he adds.

“Leopard tracks,” Reuben whispers, pointing to a distinctive set of paw prints in the dried creek bed we’re traversing. They may belong to the pair of feline lovers we encountered mating last night during a nocturnal game drive.

Soon after heading through the woodland to follow the cat tracks, we’re caught in a primal triangulation. To one side of us, a grunting hippo surfaces like a submarine in the algae-covered water and waddles up the bank to graze. On the other, members of a herd of male Cape buffalo nervously fixate on us. And right in front, a huge male adolescent elephant, alerted to our presence, trumpets loudly and aggressively flaps his enormous ears, which legend says God made in the shape of Africa.

“We’ve entered his personal space, and he wants to appear as big and impressive as possible,” Pereira says, motioning us to crouch behind a termite mound and remain still, not giving the elephant a reason to charge us.

As we watch nervously, the largest land animal on Earth decides instead to give us a wide berth and join the rest of his herd splashing in the cool Zambezi waters.

“It’s all about how much confidence the animal has,” Pereira says. “He’s thinking that ‘because I’m an elephant, everybody runs. But they aren’t running. That’s odd. So I better back off.’ “

And if we had run? Pereira says the elephant might have charged us. As would the hippo if we had found ourselves between it and the water, the only place where it feels secure. And most certainly the buffaloes, which kill more humans than any other animal on this continent, had they perceived us as a threat. In the African bush, it’s all about respecting escape routes.

What if there is no escape? I find out that afternoon when a herd of 40 bull elephants fords the Zambezi and climbs up the riverbank into Old Mondoro. Pulse racing, I retreat inside my open-sided tent as a group of these gentle giants shakes the massive winterthorn trees just outside, snacking on the protein-packed pods that fall to the ground. We’re so close I can nearly tickle one of their trunks – a potentially fatal gesture, because any sudden movement could startle my visitors and trigger jumbo-size trouble.

The elephants have been feeding here since long before the camp was built. These intelligent creatures operate on a strict schedule, and there are certain areas where they want to be during certain parts of the day, regardless of who else is around. And of course, being pachyderms, they never forget the route.

“At first I was terrified. But then I thought, this is the most wonderful experience of my life,” recalls Glenda Law, who is staying at Old Mondoro with her husband, Alf, a lawyer from New York. “Alf had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly,” she adds. “The young bull elephants heard this and, perhaps thinking it was some kind of mating call, came closer to see what it was.”

Over a torch-lit riverside dinner that evening, De Villiers explains that the camp has never had a problem with animals entering or damaging the tents. Reassured, I’m more relaxed the next afternoon when the young elephant hoovering up foliage just yards from my porch pauses to stare at me with its long-lashed eyes. Instead of fear, I feel more of an anthropomorphic cross-species connection. What I wouldn’t give to read its mind.

Intensity of wildlife encounters aside, it’s the high animal-to-human ratio that makes Lower Zambezi National Park so unusual, according to Grant Cumings, whose family owns both Old Mondoro and nearby Chiawa, voted one of Africa’s top luxury camps by Condé Nast Traveler .

“Anywhere else in Africa, you would have 20-30 camps situated in this sort of pristine environment,” Cumings says over gin and tonic in the shade of evergreen mahogany trees.

“Here, just six camps share 75 miles of Lower Zambezi River frontage,” he adds. “Because the animals are caught between the mountains and the river, they’re forced to migrate to this nutrient-rich floodplain when everything dries up, making for superb game viewing.”

The Zambezi also offers outstanding game and bird viewing, which I learn the next afternoon during a canoe safari with Chiawa’s head guide, Paul Gobbler. As we leisurely navigate labyrinths of ever-shifting shallow channels, elephants graze on nearby islands, surrounded by pods of snorting hippos packing 3-foot-long incisors that can slice a person in half. African fish eagles and flocks of red-winged pratincole circle high overhead.

Beneath the calm waters of this 1,633-mile-long waterway dividing Zambia and Zimbabwe – 19th-century explorer David Livingston called it “God’s highway” – lurk opportunistic crocodiles waiting for crested guinea fowl or Egyptian geese to wander too close to the water’s edge. That makes it all the more exciting when we get caught between crocs and a hard place, stuck on a sandbar in the middle of the river.

“We’ve got crocs and hippos all around us,” Gobbler says, betraying no hint of alarm. “But that’s OK. We’ll just hop out here and drag our little craft across this stretch of sand. Our mission now is to get back to dry land, limbs intact.”

A half-dozen massive reptiles watch as we climb out of our canoe, pull it across the sandbar to open water, then paddle for shore, where sundowners await. Never has a chilled glass of chardonnay tasted so good as we toast another human-powered adventure in Zambia, where going on safari means not being afraid to get your boots dirty and your feet wet.

Mark Sissons is a freelance writer in Canada.

When you go

Getting there

South African Airways (www.flysaa.com) flies daily to Johannesburg from New York, with connections to Zambia’s capital of Lusaka, which is near Lower Zambezi National Park. Visitors with next-day safari connections can stay at Chaminuka Luxury Lodge and nature reserve (www.chaminuka.com), 20 minutes from the airport.

Outfitters

•Denver-based Rothschild Safaris (1-800-405-9463; www.rothschildsafaris.com) offers a range of customizable Zambian itineraries, some featuring Chiawa (www.chiawa.com) and Old Mondoro (www.chiawa.com/ pages/old_mondoro_bush_ camp.htm) bush camps. They also offer extensions to Victoria Falls (www.zambia tourism.com/travel/ places/victoria.htm), where you can take a dip in the Devil’s Pool, a naturally formed retaining wall that allows you to swim right up to the lip of the frothing gorge without plunging to your death. Ten-day Zambia safaris start at $4,500, not including international air.

•Other U.S.-based safari outfitters offering Zambia itineraries include Global Adrenaline (www.globaladrenaline.com), the Wild Source (http://thewild source.com) and Africa Adventure Consultants (www.adventuresinafrica .com).

•Recommended Zambia-based operators that offer walking safaris include Luangwa Valley-based Kafunta Safaris (www.luangwa.com) and Nanzhila Plains Safari Camp (www.nanzhila.com) in remote Kafue National Park, Africa’s second-largest game reserve.

Resource

Zambia Tourism Board, www.zambiatourism.com

Article Source: Dallas News (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/travel/thisweek/stories/DN-zambia_0110tra.ART0.State.Edition1.9c0ec3.html)

HCAWUZ president Mubiana Sitwala said in an interview yesterday the Government should lift visa fees for the period of the World Cup to ensure that more tourists come to Zambia.

“Currently, we have no infrastructure like stadiums to participate in the hosting of the World Cup, hence the need for us to market the country and woo more tourists during that time,” Mr Sitwala said.

He said lifting visa fees would boost the tourism industry and ensure economic development in the country this year.

Mr Sitwala urged the Government to allow nationalities from countries like India to get visas at entry posts for the World Cup period.

On the resolutions of the union this year, Mr Sitwala said his organisation would this year ensure that all companies which had not unionised their workers did so.

The union was also committed to ensuring that casualisation in the tourism industry came to an end.

“At this moment, casualisation in the industry is one of our greatest challenges. We want to ensure that our workers are fully employed this year,” Mr Sitwala said.

Meanwhile, Mr Sitwala has called on Zesco to minimise power outages as they are negatively affecting the tourism industry.

He said tourists who came for holiday in Zambia were negatively affected when they found power outages.

Source: All Africa.com (http://allafrica.com/stories/201001070296.html)

Facing the Falls is another sheer wall of basalt, rising to the same height and capped by mist-soaked rain forest. A path along the edge of the forest provides the visitor who is prepared to brave the tremendous spray with an unparalleled series of views of the Falls.
One special vantage point is across the Knife edge bridge, where visitors can have the finest view of the Eastern Cataract and the Main Falls as well as the Boiling Pot where the river turns and heads down the Batoka Gorge. Other vantage points include the Falls Bridge and the Lookout Tree which commands a panoramic view across the Main Falls.

Formation of the Falls

During the Jurassic Period (150 – 200 million years ago) volcanic activity resulted in thick basalt deposits covering large parts of Southern Africa. As the lava cooled and solidified, cracks appeared in the hard basalt crust, which were filled with clay and lime. Erosion and the course of the mighty Zambezi River cut through these softer materials, forming the first of a series of waterfalls. Over at least 2,000 years, the Falls have receded 8km upstream, as the Zambezi carved its way through seven gorges. This geological history can be seen in the dark basalt in the series of rocky gorges below the Falls. It is guessed that the Devil’s Cataract, which is presently the lowest point of Victoria Falls, will eventually become the next gorge as the river continues to cut its way back upstream.

Livingstone’s first sighting

In 1851, Livingstone first heard of the great waterfall, but it was only in 1855 that he set out to visit it. He spent the night on Kalai Island a few kilometers upstream of the Falls, having come down river by foot, and the next morning set off in a small canoe to approach the thundering smoke. He landed on the biggest island on the lip of the falls, now called Livingstone Island and from there obtained his first view of the falls.
“Creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen to twenty yards the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa.”

Victoria Falls Sightseeing

The Victoria Falls Bridge was commissioned by Cecil John Rhodes in 1900, although he never visited the falls and died before construction began, he expressed his wish that the “railway should cross the Zambezi just below the Victoria Falls. I should like to have the spray of the falls over the carriages.”

The bridge affords a magnificent view both down the gorge on the one side and through to the falls on the other. The immense depth of the gorge can be fully appreciated from this perspective and combined with the sea green river below, the shiny black rock face and lush green foliage, the 360 degree view from the bridge is breathtaking.

Aerial view of the Falls:

To fully appreciate the incredible size of the Falls, and the awesome power of the water as it carves into the deep zig zagging gorges for 8 km one must see it from the air. Micro-light and fixed wing flights are available. The pilot will take you along the wide tranquil upper Zambezi, and over the huge 2 km rent in the earth. The breathtaking sight of this magnificent natural phenomenon, seen in all its glory from the air, is unforgettable. Helicopter Flights are also available from United Air Charters.

Travel Tips to the Falls

Different times of the year will provide completely different experiences of the Falls region. Peak flood season is around March and April and the full power of the falls can be experienced in all its glory. But due to the masses of spray raising from the fallen water the full width of the Falls cannot be seen on foot. The aerial view at this time however is spectacular, with clouds of spray rising high into the sky.

As the floods abate the view of the falls gets better and better through the year, but at its lowest, around November and December the Falls become little rivulets running over the edge and in some places along the 1,7km width no water falls at all. This season’s gift is the view of the impressive cliffs that form the Falls wall and the magnitude of the abyss can be fully appreciated. Sobek and Safari Par Excellence do trips by raft to the base of the Falls in low season called ‘the float of angels”.

Getting there

The Falls can be approached from the town of Livingstone by traveling south on Mosi O Tunya road for some 11 kilometers. Just before the border, there is a turning to the right which leads to a parking area. Walks all around the Falls are accessible from this point. If approaching from Zimbabwe, cross the border at the town of Victoria Falls and watch for the left turning just after the Zambian customs post.

Accommodation;

Once on safari, accommodation in available at the following places;

•Stanley Safari Lodge- One of the top addresses near the falls with wonderful views on the Zambezi River, the falls itself and a waterhole that elephants regularly visit.

•Drifter Inn Victoria Falls – only 20 minutes by foot from the falls, this is a simple but quiet inn offers splendid luxurious rooms.

•Victoria Falls Safari Lodge- located in the immediate neighborhood of the falls this lodge even includes a casino and is beautifully decorated in a safari-style. You can also have a good lunch here, while rooms are available from US$150/pp.

•Waterberry Lodge – about 15 km from the falls and 28 km from Livingstone itself, direclty located on the banks of the Zambezi River. All huts have garden view.

•David Livingstone Safari Lodge- The banks of the mighty Zambezi have welcomed a breathtaking two-story 77-roomed hotel, comprising 72 river facing rooms and 5 luxurious suites. Historical English elements reflect in lofty scale with the rawness of texture, stone, wood and earth, contrasting with the richness of exotic gold, bronze, copper and ivory, once traded through ancient Arab routes.

•Imbabala Zambezi Safari Lodge is carefully situated on a riverine fringe of the mighty Zambezi River where Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia converge. Located 80 kilometers west of Victoria Falls, access is by transfer from Victoria Falls, Livingstone or Kasane. Imbabala offers not only the chance to unwind but also some of the most amazing game viewing and bird watching in the region, in the seclusion of a private National Parks concession. The 5,000 acre concession has 14 kilometers of private Zambezi river frontage and borders the Chobe Forest Reserve, which is renowned for its massive Elephant population. Herds of up to 1500 elephants have been seen on the floodplains below the Lodge.

•Spray view Hotel is about 2 km from the falls and over accommodation from US$100.

•The Zambezi Sun – one of the well-known hotels near the falls with different kinds of accommodation and restaurant.

Mr Simbao said in Lusaka yesterday that the rate of death emanating from the disease had been reduced by 66 per cent as per World Health Organisation (WHO) findings and that was partly attributable to the use of coartem.

He said this during a Press briefing on the use of coartem as first-line treatment of malaria attended by journalists, some from Europe, who are in the country under the sponsorship of Novartis Malaria Initiative, the manufacturers of coartem.

He said although international records showed that Zambia had not yet attained the disease elimination stage, in had been in actual fact achieved and soon the country would be able to reach the disease-free scenario.

Mr Simbao said Zambia recorded success through the multifaceted approach which included the provision of more than five million treated anti-mosquito nets, the indoor residual spraying and the use of coartem following the high failure rate of chloroquine.

Malaria is a tropical disease caused by parasites of the plasmodium species and is transmitted from person to person through the bites of an infected female anopheles mosquito.

The symptoms include fever, headaches and other flu-like signs and if not treated, the disease in its most severe form leads to a coma or death.

Mr Simbao said unlike before 2003 when on average the country recorded about 340 cases of the disease in every group of 1,000 people, the situation had drastically changed and some health centres had no incidents of the disease for long periods.

He said the use of coartem had eliminated resistance, thereby reducing the recurrent cases for the disease which he said was a huge drawback on the national productivity.

When asked by a journalist to confirm if coartem was relatively expensive to procure, Mr Simbao said previously, it used to be but over the years Norvatis had drastically reduced the cost as African countries bought more of the drug.

Earlier, global access and marketing director – Novartis Malaria Initiatives, Hans Rietveld paid tribute to the Zambian leadership for its commitment towards the fight against the disease.

Mr Rietveld said Zambia was among the first African countries to adopt coartem as the front-line treatment in 2002 and the move had paid off.

He said Zambia’s achievement was a demonstration that it was possible to significantly reduce malaria related morbidity and mortality.

He said coartem was a unique drug in the treatment of multi-drug resistant malaria and had a cure rate of more than 95 per cent.