Elias Lunga, a journalist and editor at Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation, used his travel bursary to do a work experience attachment at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC). With a particular focus on tourism reporting, his goals included improving his journalism skills by seeing how KBC reporters developed story ideas and produced news bulletins.

As Zambia is co-hosting the biennial UN World Tourism Organization assembly this year, Elias wanted to learn how KBC has covered it so that he could apply this knowledge to cover the event in his own country.

Elias said: “My attachment to KBC was very beneficial as it exposed me to how creative programming can be made around tourism and how important it is to include this in everyday news with dedicated journalists.”

At KBC Elias worked closely with the business desk, which covers stories on tourism, and a dedicated tourism correspondent, Ireen Muchuma. She won a Kenya Tourism Award for her production of a programme called Magical Scenes. Elias shadowed Ireen’s work, and also went on field visits to tourists spots around Nairobi to find out how these generated stories.

Elias compared the setup with his employer, ZNBC, which runs business stories but has no business desk, and certainly no dedicated tourism reporting output. With the drive to diversify Zambia’s economy — tourism being a key part of this, Elias has proposed that ZNBC works towards modelling the output on Kenya’s, with support from the Zambia Tourism Board.

He added: “It is the responsibility of every Zambian to make the [tourism assembly] a success and get the maximum benefit from it as a country – especially in tourism.”

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The CBA is grateful to the Elizabeth R Broadcasting Fund and the Grace Wyndham Goldie Trust for their continued support for these bursaries.