Victoria Falls thundered below Axon, who stood at the edge of the Zambezi River near a group of tourists from South Africa.
Axon, 33, is a cab driver and tourist guide who moved to Livingstone because it’s the best city in Zambia to earn a living in the transportation industry.
At Victoria Falls, the Zambian native teaches his clients how to scare away baboons on the trails in one breath and shares the ecological dependence the rainforest has on the falls in the next. He’s a crack guide who drives tourists to ride elephants and spy lions and bungee jump, but this year, he’s booking fewer guests, and he believes more of the tourism dollars spent in Zambia are ending up elsewhere.
“After all the activities, only little remains in Zambia,” Axon said.
In a place some call “The Real Africa,” the tourism industry is growing, its direct contribution to the economy forecast to increase 7.7 percent in a decade, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Some 25 percent of the country’s nearly 1 million annual tourists are foreigners, and boosting those visits is a goal of the government, according to The Times of Zambia.
Axon, father of three girls, should be bringing home more money as a result of the effort, but he and other Zambians whose businesses rely on tourism say they are witnessing an economic system that is cutting out the locals as it prospers.
As tourism has grown, more lodges and hotels have opened in Livingstone, but native owners aren’t the ones earning as a result, Axon said.
“Those that are doing well are foreigners,” he said.
Those owners are grabbing up more ancillary businesses, he said, enterprises that Axon believes should benefit locals. In the past, tourists contacted him to book cab rides, but now, he said the lodges are offering the service directly.
“Why is it these guys who are dealing with accommodations, they are also dealing with curios?” he said of souvenirs. “They are dealing with transportation.”
Source: missoulian.com
