Malawi Eyes on Shanxi

By+Bright+Mhango

TEN years ago， Shanxi was best known for its coal and heavy industry， with its tourism potential being undeveloped and overshadowed by the neighboring Shaanxi Province which is famous for its Terracotta Warriors.

Realizing that coal does not last forever， Shanxi Government started investing in tourism and hospitality services in order to transform the local economic development mode， moving away from heavy industry and energy. Li Jing， 33-year-old tour guide in Shanxi who calls herself Yoyo， has seen it all changing.

“Local governments policies concentrated on heavy industry，[but] there were no proper facilities such as hotels and restaurants and most of the tourism service staff were from the villages and not well trained，” Yoyo said. “The biggest challenge was transportation： It used to take eight hours to drive from Taiyuan （capital of Shanxi） to Wutai Mountain （a famous scenic spot）； now it is just three hours.”

Tourism-driven transformation

And I did notice what she was saying. There were dozens of bright red buses on the road ferrying all shades of tourists to and from iconic places in the province.

The roads have been shortened by burrowing straight under mountains with some tunnels feeling like 6 km. The road signs come in English and Chinese and the tour buses get priority passes on the toll gates.

Yoyo added that the government efforts such as organizing tourism expos and liaising with big tourism agencies in Shaanxi and Beijing have helped publicize Shanxi. She added that Beijing and Xian （capital of Shaanxi） were mere ancient capitals， but Shanxi is where one can see how ancient common people lived.

And she is right： Shanxi has enough sites to be a tourism powerhouse at the level of Egypt or Peru， with three UNESCO blessed heritage sites such as the Pingyao Ancient City， Wutai Mountain and the Yungang Grottoes.

It now has tour guide services in 10 foreign languages including Japanese and Korean from just English and French a few years ago.

And all this has paid off， as confirmed by Ma Bin， the man in charge of public relations in Shanxis second biggest city， Datong.

Ma said 12 airlines are now flying to Datong and there is a 15 percent annual growth in tourist numbers. Most of the tourists are Chinese， but Japanese， Koreans and Europeans make a significant number too.

“More still needs to be done. Tourism staff need to be trained in foreign languages， and we need to develop more tourism products and services unique to Shanxi，” said Yoyo.

She contended that tourism cannot currently take the place of coal， but has high hopes for the future. She believes Shanxi can focus on handicrafts， light industry and wine and vinegar making to boost the economy vis-à-vis tourism.

Lessons for Malawi

As someone who has been about in Africa and an African myself， I could not stop comparing Shanxi to most of Africa. There are Shanxis all over Africa， so much tourism potential， but just not tapped or fully tapped.

Most African governments depend on commodities to get by， but year in year out the prices of these commodities keep fluctuating and most of the gains go to wealthy Europeans.

Take Malawi， officially the poorest country in terms of per-capita GDP according to the World Bank， for example. Malawi relies on tobacco exports to get up to 80 percent of its foreign exchange.

But Malawi has one of the purest and biggest freshwater lakes with one of the highest diversity of fish species in the world； it has all of the famed “Big Five” animals， and has one of Africas highest mountains， pristine cultures， exciting trails and ancient historical sites.

Why is Malawi not a tourism powerhouse yet？ Well， she has the same issues as the Shanxi of yesterday： bad roads， poor publicity， too much focus of tobacco by government…

As I sat in a cozy hotel deep in Wutai Mountain enjoying wild rabbit for dinner， I could not help but wonder why my Malawi or Africa cannot engage the Shanxi gear.