Tourism and Arts Minister Ronald Chitotela says Emirates Airlines has expressed willingness to put Zambia among the countries that will participate in the 2020 Dubai Expo.

And Chitotela says he hopes to make tourism Zambia’s primary economic sector; above agriculture and mining.

Speaking when Zambia Tourism Council officials paid a courtesy call on him in Lusaka, Tuesday, Chitotela also said he dreamt of actualizing the two million tourist arrivals by the end of 2020.

“We pray that we put tourism the first [and] even above agriculture because for agriculture, when people grow, they are going to harvest from the soil, mining, people are going to mine once they mine, they remove extracting industry, it will not be there. But tourism is about impression. People come and the impression they will have, they would want to come back again and again. So we need to break it as Zambia. I was talking to Emirates and they are willing to put Zambia to participate in the 2020 Dubai expo so that we can begin telling our own story. So as we meet the ZTA we will engage them so that we begin preparing ourselves and engage our stakeholders who are the private sector,” Chitotela said.

He said he would build on the successes of his predecessors by adopting best practices.

And Chitotela said Emirate Airlines had also expressed willingness to show the documentary of Africa’s first-ever walking safaris in the South Luangwa National Park as part of their package of inflight entertainment.