A NDOLA-based company Meeting Centre has acquired land on the outskirts of Ndola town where it will build the first-ever mining tourism centre at the country's oldest copper mine Bwana Mkubwa.

Meeting Centre general manager Moses Mambwe said his company has acquired a 75-metre-squared piece of land on the old mine site where it intends to build Old Bwana Mukubwa Tourism Centre.

Mr Mambwe said the area was specially selected as a tourism spot because it was surrounded by the old Bwana Mkubwa Mine which was opened in 1909.

The area also housed the old prison where Zambian freedom fighters were detained during the colonial era, and a special centre which was created for housing the Polish refugees during the Second World War.

He said Meeting Centre was working in collaboration with the Copperbelt Tourism Council, examining the possibilities of coming up with ways which would see people visiting Ndola and the Copperbelt, visit the mining tourism resort to learn about the old mine and how the copper mining industry evolved over the years.

"The concept has worked in Livingstone where visitors entering the town by air were being made to see the Victoria Falls because the planes entering the town fly over the tourist attraction," he said.

Mr Mambwe said local and foreign tourists, students and individuals would greatly benefit in terms of getting valuable knowledge by visiting the centre which was expected to open to the public before the end of 2013.

And Copperbelt Museum director Chipo Simuchembu said mining tourism still remained untapped in Zambia and there was need for more Zambians to consider investing in the field.