Sunbird urges media to promote domestic tourism

Sunbird Tourism Limited has urged the media to play a key role as government and operators in the sector are scaling up efforts to promote domestic tourism.

In an interview on the sidelines of a media tour that the company organised for journalists from various media houses from the Southern Region, Sunbird Tourism Limited public relations officer Akossa Mphepo said for people to appreciate tourism places there is need for the local media to spread information on the country’s tourist places.

“Instead of turning to outside countries for leisure, why not start by patronising local ventures and in that sense, empowering the tourism sector,” she said.

Mphepo said the reason the company engaged journalists is to ensure that people get to know and appreciate the beautiful nature of Malawi through the media.

According to Patricia Liabuba, director of tourism in the ministry of Information, Tourism and Civic Education her department is set to launch the Domestic Tourism Strategy next month, which seeks to promote local patronage of tourists as well as raising the sector’s contribution to gross domestic production (GDP) by around 15 percent by 2020.