As a potential tourist destination, the small, south-central African nation of Zambia could be called a well-kept secret.

Zambia boasts a wealth of wildlife and unspoiled natural areas, adventure opportunities, one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world and rich culture. And unlike many nearby countries, Zambia is politically stable and peaceful.

But when asked what they know about the country, many people outside of Africa say they've never heard of it. Others confuse it with neighbor Zimbabwe, which has been in the news recently for its political conflicts and corruption.

To change that, Zambian leaders from the public and private sectors have engaged six School of Hotel Administration (SHA) students and Robert Kwortnik, SHA associate professor of service marketing, as branding and marketing consultants.

The goal: increase annual tourist visits to Zambia from about 810,000 last year to 3 million in three years -- and help the Zambian people begin to work their way out of poverty.

It's an ambitious goal, particularly with a limited marketing budget. But when Mark O'Donnell, chairman of the Tourism Council of Zambia, director of Protea Hotels Zambia and father of two Cornellians, raised the challenge with Leah Corgel, a 2009 SHA Master of Management in Hospitality (MMH) graduate who works for him in Zambia, Corgel contacted Kwortnik, her former professor.

The result: Five MMH students and one Johnson School student took on the project as part of a new hospitality innovation practicum course, which gives teams of students experience solving real-world challenges.

After learning all they could about tourism in sub-Saharan Africa, the team surveyed American, British, Asian and South African citizens to gauge perceptions of Zambia.

"The obvious conclusion there was that there is a complete lack of brand awareness," said Kwortnik. "Zambia is simply unknown."

Next, the students brainstormed and developed brand concepts. Over spring break, they toured the country, hosted by the Zambian government and private companies. There, the students presented their research, collected feedback, sampled the tourist experience firsthand, and -- well, relished a rare chance to see their professor trying out his African dancing skills.

"The response [to the students, not the dancing] was overwhelmingly positive," Kwortnik said. "I came away thinking, there's a really good chance that this country's going to rebrand -- and they're going to use Cornell's ideas to do that."

"Professor Kwortnik and his team of graduate students have done incredible work and are making suggestions that will indeed make a difference," wrote O'Donnell in an e-mail, adding that he hopes the relationship between Cornell and Zambia will continue.

For the students, the trip was reward for months of hard work.

"To get that positive feedback from people who are going to be carrying it out, living it each and every day -- it was a great moment of affirmation," said Joy Lin, MMH '10. "I've always believed that travel and tourism can be a driver for positive economic change, and this project was evidence of that."

"The economic impact of one additional visitor to Zambia is staggering," said Ethan Hawkes, SHA '07 and a Johnson School student. "Taking on such a macro level [project] that can impact an entire industry was extremely powerful."

Now, the team is developing the next steps for executing a potential marketing campaign.

Kwortnik will stay on the project and possibly recruit a new group of students to follow up in the fall. Meanwhile, the students will carry the experience into their careers.

"It was a great way to understand the challenges that a developing country is going through," said Ashvin Iyengar, MMH '10. "Going there and seeing how things function and how completely different they are compared to the context that a lot of us have been in before ... this experience cements why people choose to go to Cornell and go to the Hotel School and not anywhere else."