Consultancy is sought to research markets and build a destination brand and marketing strategy aimed at lifting tourism competitiveness.
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Consulting firms are being sounded out to help Zambia redefine how it presents itself to travellers worldwide, with new market research, a tourism brand and a marketing strategy at the centre of plans to sharpen the country’s competitive edge.
On 11th February 2026, the Ministry of Tourism published a prior information notice for consulting services under a tourism brand development procurement. The brief is concise but clear: the ministry wants market research and a tourism brand and marketing strategy that can enhance Zambia’s competitiveness as a global tourism destination.
Although this is only a prior information notice, it gives the market an early view of the scope. The assignment as described revolves around three linked strands:
The procurement link identifies the wider framework as the Green, Resilient and Transformational Tourism Development Project, signalling that the branding work is one element in a larger programme of reforms and investments in the sector. For advisory firms, the notice points to demand for skills that cut across tourism economics, place branding and modern, often digital-first, marketing.
Any effort to reposition a destination now has to perform strongest where travellers plan and book trips: on screens. While the notice does not spell out specific channels, a tourism brand and marketing strategy of this kind is likely to be judged on how well it can be executed across search, social platforms, online travel agents and content partnerships, as well as more traditional media.
Other recent consulting notices in tourism and related sectors show how data and digital skills are being built up around this agenda. In August 2025, Cabo Verde’s Unidade de Gestao de Projectos Especiais issued a call for an individual consultant in its Tourism Statistics Training Opportunity. That assignment focuses on training local entities in tourism statistics methodologies, strengthening the evidence base for policy and marketing decisions.
Further west, digital capabilities are being tackled head-on. In January 2026, the Ministry of Communication, Technology, and Innovation launched a notice for a digital literacy curriculum and Skills-to-Jobs Platform in Sierra Leone, aiming to train 1,500 young people in digital skills. And in September 2025, Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Finance sought firms to help design a Startup Act to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.
Together, these initiatives point to a broader shift: destinations and their partners are not only refreshing their tourism brands, they are also investing in the digital skills, data systems and policy frameworks needed to compete in a travel market shaped by online platforms. Zambia’s planned tourism brand strategy will be developed in this context – where the strength of a destination’s story and its ability to target, measure and refine campaigns are increasingly inseparable.
The enabling infrastructure for that shift is also being examined. In February 2026, SMART ZAMBIA published a notice for consultancy services to conduct social and environmental impact assessments for the Digital Zambia Acceleration Project, focused on broadband expansion. Improved connectivity of this kind underpins the online discovery, booking and review systems that modern tourism brands depend on.
The tourism brand work also sits alongside a wave of consulting assignments that link tourism, resilience and inclusive growth. In November 2025, Ghana’s Ministry of Finance – Economic Transformation advertised a Tourism Sector Consultancy to carry out strategic planning and prioritisation research for the tourism sector in line with a 24-Hour Economy agenda.
In December 2025, the Project Fiduciary and Administrative Agency in São Tomé and Príncipe sought an administrator for the TelaTUR coastal resilience and sustainable tourism programme, while the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation in Fiji invited firms to support MSME and women‑led enterprises under the Fiji Tourism Development Program in Vanua Levu.
Also in December 2025, the Economic Transformation for Inclusive Growth programme in Madagascar launched a consultancy to design an ecotourism concessions strategy for national parks, aimed at sustainable financing and local development through private investment. Here, tourism branding is closely bound up with conservation goals and revenue‑sharing models.
Zambia’s own policy landscape reflects similar themes. In November 2025, the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment advertised consultancy roles for the Transforming Landscapes for Resilience and Development II Project, targeting landscape degradation and community resilience. Later that same month, the Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare sought consultants for a market and needs assessment on climate‑resilient income‑generating activities for women in urban and rural districts.
This cluster of work suggests that when consultants come to frame Zambia’s tourism brand, they will be doing so in a policy environment where resilience, climate‑smart livelihoods and green growth are already prominent themes. The brand will need to sit comfortably alongside narratives about landscape protection, community benefits and inclusive economic opportunities if it is to gain traction across government and with international partners.
The tourism brand assignment is also characteristic of how international development finance is now organised: through portfolios of targeted consulting contracts spanning strategy, implementation support, impact assessment and independent monitoring. Many of the similar notices are clearly embedded in such portfolios.
One December 2025 notice from the Council for Development and Reconstruction, for example, seeks firms to provide Third Party Monitoring Agent services for an agrifood transformation project, focusing on verifying compliance with World Bank standards. Elsewhere, electricity utilities and ministries are procuring advisory work on reform roadmaps, performance improvement plans and financial audits, such as Mozambique’s Power Sector Reform Roadmap and the associated financial audit services.
For consultancies specialising in tourism, branding and marketing, Zambia’s prior information notice signals that similar governance and safeguard expectations are likely to apply in the tourism space. Firms will need not only creative and analytical strength but also the ability to work within multi‑stakeholder, donor‑financed programmes where monitoring, evaluation and compliance sit alongside strategy and campaign design.
The Ministry of Tourism’s notice is an early step, but it points towards a substantial assignment that could reshape how Zambia speaks to international visitors and investors in the coming years. The eventual terms of reference will show how strongly digital channels, sustainability messaging and community benefits feature in the final brief, and how the brand work is expected to align with broader green and digital projects already under way.
For now, the signal is clear: destination branding and tourism marketing are being treated as strategic levers for growth, worthy of dedicated, research‑led consultancy support and integrated into a wider agenda of resilience, digital transformation and inclusive development.
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