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ZIMBABWE’S tourism and hospitality industry should benchmark itself with Cuba’s tourism industry experience due to similar sanctions-induced economic challenges, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister, Walter Mzembi, said yesterday.In an interview after meeting Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla in Harare to exchange notes on the two countries’ tourism industries, Minister Mzembi said Zimbabwe could learn a lot from their counterparts in terms of running the tourism sector in an economic milieu that is offset by western sanctions.
“Cuba has been in sanctions for the past 55 years, since 1961 when the US broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, and immediately they lost 90 percent of their source of international arrivals.
“And in the mid-90s they also suffered near collapse of the tourism sector due to the collapse of the Socialist countries in East Europe who were major replacement markets after the collapse of the US market. So they have suffered two major market collapses.
“How have they evolved their international tourism? For me this is the model, which we as Zimbabweans must interrogate,” said Minister Mzembi.
To this extent, the Minister has proposed to send a delegation to Cuba to carry out a benchmark study to find out how they are managing to rake up positive tourist arrival statistics despite being under prolonged sanctions.
Notwithstanding the sanctions faced by the Cuban tourism industry, it also suffers perennially from meteorological phenomena in the region, that is, hurricanes and storms that hit yearly.
Another factor is strong competition in the region. Cuba is surrounded by very competitive tourism markets such as Jamaica and Barbados among others.
However, its tourism sector has managed to negate these challenges to become one of the most effective in the Caribbean.
Compared to Zimbabwe, Cuba has better tourism infrastructure. For instance, the city of Havanna alone has over 12,000 beds, which is about at par with Zimbabwe’s estimate total of 12,000 to 15,000 beds.
The area of tourism infrastructure is one in which Zimbabwe can draw lessons from their counterparts.
“Arrivals in Cuba now reach 3 million, that is, international arrivals alone, earning them almost $2,6 billion in revenue.
“We have an equal number of arrivals into Zimbabwe – a combination of both local, regional and foreign tourists earning us about $1 billion. The question is: where are we getting it wrong?
“We negotiated away our sanctions in the sector by June 2009. We do not have a single travel advisory against us from the entire world.
We have opened our doors to the United States, and they are now the biggest travellers to the country but none that exceeds a 100, 000 tourists,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter