International tourists almost back at pre-covid levels
Malawi
saw 736,992 visitors from abroad in 2022, a 70 per cent increase from the year
before. This is just below the pre-covid levels of around 800,000 visitors a
year. Most tourists come for business, but those on holiday stay the longest on
average.
These are
some of the results found in the Malawi
tourism report 2022 (pdf) published by the National
Statistical Office in cooperation with the Department of Tourism.
The tourism
sector suffered the greatest crisis on record in 2020 due to the COVID-19
pandemic. However, in 2022 the sector showed signs of continuing recovery from
the effects of the pandemic.
More money spent
International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) increased from 431,999 in 2021 to 736,992 in 2022, representing a 70.6 percent increase. The total expenditure in 2022 by international visitors was MK18.3 billion. This was an increase from MK7.2 billion realized in 2021.Most come for business
More than 60 percent of the tourists came for work or business, around 23 percent came to visit friends or relatives, and 16 percent came to Malawi for holiday or vacation. The report shows that those who came for holiday stayed in Malawi for an average of 7.7 days, compared to 5,4 days for those on business trips.Most of the
visitors came from our neighbouring countries Mozambique and Zimbabwe, with 39
and 22 percent of the total number of tourists respectively. In total, 88
percent of the tourists came from an African country. The United States of
America is the top country outside of Africa with 3,9 percent of the
visitors.
Malawi
Government has identified tourism as one of the economic drivers as envisioned
in the Malawi 2063 under the Urbanization Pillar.
