By Monica Tambala
Lilongwe,MANA: The Ministry of Tourism has announced the return of the 4th Takulandirani Malawi International Tourism Exposition (MITE) after a 3-year halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic control measures which banned international travel.
In a press statement, the Secretary for Tourism, Chauncy Simwaka said the Expo is coming at an important time when the ministry is building on its efforts to restore the tourism sector that has suffered due to the effects of Covid-19 pandemic.
“The forthcoming expo will be the 4th Malawi Expo since the inaugural one that took place in October 2017. The Expo is one of Malawi’s key marketing activities that provides an opportunity to grow tourism traffic to Malawi through the direct engagement between regional and international buyers of Malawi tourism products and local suppliers,” he said
According to the statement, the expo will also provide opportunities for hosted buyers to enhance their practical knowledge of Malawi tourism which in turn will enable the buyers to confidently sell Malawi in their respective markets.
“Apart from hosting the buyers, the ministry will also host 12 international travel writers and documentary producers from the key traveler generating who will collect Malawi tourism content for their respective media that will be utilized to generate the industries visibility targeted towards consumers in the source markets,” reads the statement.
Accordingly, the Expo shall be preceded by a number of activities including a public lecture themed “the value of tourism to Malawi; Building National Consciousness on 8th March 2023 with the outcome of reinforcing the tourism brand and providing an opportunity for capacitating tourism MSME’s in domestic, regional and international tourism marketing among others.
The Expo will take place from 26-27 April 2023 at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe.
In a separate interview, Managing Director for Linga Wines; a fruit wine producing company, Margaret Ngwira commended the Takulandirani Malawi International Tourism Expo as a wonderful event which exposes Malawi tourism and its supporting activities to the global market.
“We are hoping that the Buy Malawi strategy will facilitate the presence of relevant Small & Medium Enterprises (SME’s) at the event. The event does not only expose our tourism sector to the global market but most importantly to each other,
If the major tourism outlets can enhance their offerings by offering mainly Malawi goods and beverages, we can all win,” she said.
Ngwira patronized the inaugural Takulandirani Expo which took place in 2017 where they paired with Kwanza PR offering a Linga strawberry wine sundowner.
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