In his own words, Honourable Rodney Sikumba is the self-proclaimed “Minister of Enjoyment of the Ministry of Entertainment.” This gives you an instant glimpse of a man who is more than a high-ranking public officer. After five years of interviewing Zambia’s foremost captains of private industry, I found him to be a welcome change. But Rodney is more than a public servant. Unlike many of his peers who have spent most of their careers walking the corridors of the public sector, Rodney exudes the unmistakable passion and adaptability of the private sector, where he spent almost 20 years across insurance and telecoms. Today, he is the area Member of Parliament for Livingstone and the current Minister of Tourism, both positions he has held since 2021.
In many ways, Rodney is the right man at the right moment for Zambia’s tourism sector, embodying a vibrant, youthful energy that reflects Zambia's spirit and youthful population. This energy is evident in his recent collaboration with global influencer @IShowSpeed, whom Rodney joined in Livingstone after riding his motorbike there. Together, they bungee jumped off the Victoria Falls Bridge.
Born and raised in Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist capital, Rodney describes it as the “golden egg” of Zambia’s tourism product, offering varied attractions anchored by the Victoria Falls, and notes that Livingstone is the biggest contributor to the sector and a key source of foreign exchange.
Rodney hails from a family line with tourism in their veins. His father, uncles, and older brother all worked in the sector at one point. After leaving a successful corporate career at the age of 35, he returned to Livingstone and started his own boutique 360-degree tourism concierge business before the public sector came calling.
His foray into entrepreneurship after full-time employment was the genesis of his political career. “At 35, I had left corporate, and I rediscovered my love for tourism. However, I had to market my small tourism business, but the bureaucracy was eating me up. I reached out to my network within the sector and found that their challenges were just like mine,” he narrates. To solve this challenge, he joined and eventually became the chair of the Livingstone Tourism Association, which advocates for the sector in the tourist capital. “But we kept hitting a brick wall, and corridors of government were not as receptive to our issues.” So, he took it a step further and stood as the area Member of Parliament, hoping it would give him a direct platform to advocate for his beloved hometown as a lawmaker. He won. That same year, he was appointed Minister of Tourism, placing him at the forefront of policy reforms shaping the sector, while the Zambia Tourism Agency continues to support implementation and marketing.
Tourism contributes approximately 7–8 per cent to Zambia’s GDP and is a critical foreign exchange earner for the country. Under Rodney’s leadership, the sector is being positioned with greater seriousness and ambition. In 2025, Zambia recorded 2.3 million international arrivals. The target for 2026 is an ambitious 3 million that Rodney believes is well within reach. “Now that Zambia is becoming well known, we are confident we can hit the target. The Zambia Tourism Agency is the body mandated to effectively market Zambia, and we now have numerous meetings scheduled to take place in Zambia. We need more infrastructure to host this increasing demand. Additionally, we need more experiences for visitors arriving. In 2025 alone, nearly 200 new restaurants opened in Lusaka. This is a spillover effect from people attending meetings at these establishments that boost local economies.”
Infrastructure investment is also on the rise to support this demand. Kasama Airport is open, and more are on the cards, including Mansa and Nakonde. Zambia’s aviation industry is opening new routes and will benefit from policy shifts, such as the expansion of visa-free access across Africa. Zambia is clearly open, as Rodney shares that visa requirements have been lifted for 167 countries, a sharp increase from 55 when he first took office.
The latest in the sector is the launch of the Brand Zambia campaign, an all-encompassing marketing platform commissioned in March 2026. For reference, Brand Zambia is comparable to the Visit Rwanda platform, which has seen the country positioned through a unified national brand, including sponsorships with Arsenal Football Club and other cross-cutting initiatives. Zambia hopes to do the same under the bold tagline "Zambia Moves You." “The tagline resonates with what we are doing. What moves you in Zambia? It’s our tourism, our mining, and our manufacturing.”
As the current chair of the UN Tourism Regional Commission for Africa, a body that aims to foster sustainable tourism across the continent, Rodney is a strong proponent of sustainable tourism, particularly sustainable hunting, which he believes could restore the traditional balance between human livelihoods and wildlife conservation. “We are taking a scientific approach to hunting and supporting communities, where we study the population of animals in specific areas, calculate gestation periods, and then give hunting quotas. When tourists pay to hunt, 50 per cent of the revenue will be used to support communities. Professional hunters are interested in trophies, not the meat. After hunting, the meat goes back to the communities, and this is a further win for them.”
When he is not working, Rodney is a family man who loves his food and knows his way around the kitchen. I could tell from his choice of order when we met for breakfast. He had blueberry French toast, while I settled for a good old English breakfast.
Our conversation reminded me that there are many paths to success, whatever that may be. Sometimes it feels like taking a leap of faith into the unknown, leaving a successful career at 35, and choosing to pursue what lights you up instead. His story is a reminder that reinvention often begins where certainty ends. Although he is now in the upper echelons of government, this conversation felt more like talking to a peer in the business world than to a politician, and maybe that’s what Zambian tourism needs at this moment.
