Malawi’s tourism sector had a strong 2024 and entered 2025 with new legislative foundations. For international investors in hospitality, eco-tourism, and leisure infrastructure, the combination of growing visitor numbers and a reformed legal framework is the most compelling tourism investment case the country has presented in years.
The 2024 numbers
Tourism investment reached MK 62.7 billion in 2024 — a 9% increase from MK 57.6 billion in 2023. The sector added 70,000 new jobs during the year, continuing post-COVID recovery. Government tourism development allocations increased to MK 4.8 billion in the 2024/25 budget.
For the 2025/26 budget, the government increased the tourism allocation by 283% — to MK 18 billion — signalling a strong policy commitment to the sector’s development.
The 2025 Tourism Act
In April 2025, Malawi enacted a new Tourism Act — the first comprehensive overhaul of the country’s tourism legislation since 1968. Key elements:
Malawi Tourism Authority (MTA): The Act establishes the MTA as a dedicated agency responsible for regulating, developing, and marketing tourism. This replaces a more fragmented institutional arrangement and gives the sector a single coordinating body with a clear mandate.
Investment facilitation: The new framework is designed to attract private investment into accommodation, activities, and tourism infrastructure by providing clearer licensing, quality standards, and investor protection provisions.
Marketing mandate: The MTA has an explicit international marketing mandate — a recognition that demand-side development requires coordinated promotion of Malawi as a destination.
Priority investment areas
The government’s national tourism investment pipeline includes:
- Cape Maclear (Mangochi and Salima): Integrated resort development on Lake Malawi
- Nkhata Bay: Waterfront development
- Likoma Island: Activity centre
- Mulanje Mountain: Integrated cable car resort
These are government-identified priority sites where private investment is being actively sought.
Why Malawi for tourism?
Malawi is known as the “Warm Heart of Africa” — a reputation built on its accessible and genuinely welcoming character. Lake Malawi (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) offers some of Africa’s best freshwater diving, sailing, and beach experiences. The country’s national parks and wildlife areas are less crowded than comparable East African alternatives.
The infrastructure gap — quality accommodation, reliable transport, power — is real but closing. The MCC road investments, energy pipeline, and now the Tourism Act create conditions for the investment in hospitality infrastructure that can make the sector’s potential commercially viable.
Our read
Tourism is one of the three legs of Malawi’s ATM (Agriculture, Tourism, Mining) growth strategy, and it is the one most dependent on foreign investor confidence in the country. The combination of genuine natural assets, an improving investment framework, and a government that is actively committing budget to sector development makes this an area worth serious evaluation.
Sources: Nation Online, DCAFS, Malawi Ministry of Tourism, AfDB tourism project.