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Harare Bureau
TOURISM and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi has bemoaned the impact of a stringent visa regime and regimented air system on tourism. To this end he called for the urgent liberalisation of visas ahead of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation general assembly to be held in Victoria Falls next month.
Minister Mzembi who was addressing a pre-election meeting yesterday said that his ministry was advocating for the facilitation and liberalisation of visas in a bid to boost tourist arrivals.
“We have written a letter to the Ministry of home affairs to make sure the facilitation of visas and other liberalisation is done in time,”
He also added that “the stringent issues that surrounded the facilitation of visas in the past have played a negative part towards tourist arrivals therefore we want to correct that part before the hosting of the general assembly”.
The minister added that Zimbabwe would receive a projected three million visitors in 2013 and he urged authorities to deal with challenges faced at Zimbabwe’s ports of entry.
“Statistics already show that 89 percent of our arrivals are intra-Africa. So why not make that even easier for ourselves,” he asked. “Business tourism is being frustrated by our visa regime which is too bureaucratic, lengthy and expensive and literally discourages travel into Zimbabwe.”
“It’s the same perennial problem and you can predict with accuracy that come December, Beitbridge will be clogged and our airports will be overburdened with traffic. So we need to fix the reception issues.”
During his visit to Zimbabwe in January this year, UNWTO regional director for Africa, Ousmane Ndiaye said Zimbabwe should liberalise its airspace and implement a visa-friendly system for the country and the rest of the continent to grow their share of the tourism market from the present paltry 4 percent to double digits by 2020.
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