By Chimpele Kelvin Tsamwa
Dear Honourable Minister,
Do you know that we (Malawians) are sitting on a gold mine? Both literally (I hear there are large gold deposits here) and through the potential the tourism industry has to help revive the post-COVID-19 economy. I’m writing to talk about the latter since it’s an area where you have a direct influence.
Working from a smartphone or a computer on a beach is a dream eleventh million people have worldwide. Why can’t we take this opportunity and make this dream come true for as many people as we can?
How?
We can offer short and long term remote working visas to ‘digital nomads’. Dubai, Georgia, Mauritius, Barbados and a whole lot of other countries already launched similar programmes and they’re quite a huge hit.
The conditions vary from place to place and we can learn from others that have already launched their programmes but the underlining feature would be that we grant visas to those who can prove that they’re not going to earn their income locally. All applicants must either be employed by organizations registered outside of Malawi or freelancers serving clients not based in Malawi and also prove that they have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Our nation has always been a great tourist attraction and recently attained the Safe Travels Stamp given by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). On top of this, we offer nice beaches, a safe environment and a low cost of living than most countries. Demand wouldn’t be an issue.
Restrictions on travel and lockdowns introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to hit global tourism hard and one only has to watch the news to see how much people have missed traveling across the globe. Let’s open up Malawi to ‘digital nomads’ and accelerate our post-COVID-19 recovery.
And now with vaccine campaigns rolled out worldwideit would be a good idea if we prepare for the incoming stream of remote working people since a good number of organizations have adopted remote work. I don’t even need to explain the effect such a programme would have on our economy.
I know you’re a ‘listening’ member of Cabinet and won’t simply ignore this. What do we have to lose anyway? And no, I’m not pitching my services, the Ministry of Tourism has got many capable individuals and teams who can develop and fully implement such a strategy. This is to simply let you know that we have an opportunity worth looking into.
Sincerely,
Chimpele Kelvin Tsamwa
