By Sheminah Nkhoma

Lilongwe, May 6, Mana: Head of Presidential Delivery Unit (PDU), who is also Deputy Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Janet Banda, has said government will continue to asses and implement the performance of tourism sector to make it productive.

Speaking during the opening of a two-day pre-tourism lab meeting at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe, Banda highlighted that there are some barriers in the tourism sector which are important for the government to address.

“The meeting is very important as we will be discussing issues which have been holding back this sector. Despite making efforts in the tourism sector, there are a lot of setbacks which we need to work on,” said Banda.

She further said there are a lot of problems which the tourism sector is facing, such as poor infrastructure and poor coordination in the tourism team, adding that the pre-lab meeting will help to come up with better solutions.

In his remarks, Secretary for Tourism Chancy Simwaka articulated the need of having the pre-lab as it will isolate the main bottlenecks that have been affecting the tourism sector in the country.

“As Ministry of Tourism, we are going to make effort to develop various skills in the tourism sector, including hotel management, food production and tour guides to make sure that we have good standards in the industry,” said Simwaka.

The pre-lab meeting comes after the tourism sector hosted the Takulandirani Mw International Tourism Expo (MITE), which was graced by President Lazarus Chakwera last month.