Andrew
Charles Mavhunga
Economic development (ED) is a spirit that demands collaborative thinking and patriotism to lead the country into prosperity.
In the tourism sector, city branding is a new global trajectory for Zimbabwe to support the country’s economic development spirit, which is exemplified by the new Parliament building, the new Beitbridge Border Post, the Harare-Beitbridge road project and the Muchekeranwa Dam, among other projects that are changing the country’s look.
The tourism business is growing fast worldwide, and city branding is one of the economic development solutions for Zimbabwe to tap into.
This article seeks to articulate issues associated with city branding and provides insights into lawful steeplechases Zimbabwe seems to be faced with to embrace the full economic development spirit meant to deliver the mandate of the freedom fighters to build the Zimbabwe we want.
What is city branding?
City branding is a tourism product that involves the creation of positive customer-visitor experiences, preferences, loyalty to the city and the configuration of a city’s marketing mix instruments to achieve the desired goal to attract attention.
The United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, stated in 2017 that more than 1,2 billion people visit resort centres every year, and, therefore, city branding is a tourist product meant to publicise a city’s competitive advantages.
It is also a stimulus to the city’s passport to prosperity.
The major focus of city branding in the tourism industry is for cities to engage in competition for attention, investments, shoppers, talent capture and events, among other targets.
City branding is a spiritual transformative action plan that the city adopts to improve the lives of millions of people through quality service delivery by city fathers (mayors and councillors). The branding of cities is a tourism service product making headlines in the world to transform the economy of a country to prosperity.
To tap into this economic development trajectory, Zimbabwe’s towns and cities — Harare (Sunshine City) Mutare (Kumakomoyo), Bulawayo (City of Kings), Marondera (The town of cleanliness), Masvingo (The Great Zimbabwe City), Victoria Falls (The City of Great Wonders) and many others — should spring into action to become globalised.
However, for the Government’s drive to engage the right gears of economic development to become a success story through city branding, there are issues of alignment that need to be corrected.
The Urban Local Authority Act
Chapter 14 paragraph 274 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe creates the Urban Local Authority in Zimbabwe and mandates it to represent the affairs of people in urban areas throughout Zimbabwe.
Paragraph 274 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe elaborates that urban local authorities are managed by councillors who are voted into office by registered voters in the urban areas concerned. The elected councillors preside and elect mayors or chairpersons to preside over issues relating to the affairs of the urban area.
The creation of the urban local authority implies that elected councillors and mayors form the leadership of the urban areas and are the board members in charge of business affairs (city branding) of the town or city.
This means service delivery and quality systems to achieve top level city branding are in the hands of the local authority (mayors and councillors) running the city.
However, in Zimbabwe, the voting process to appoint councillors and mayors is producing politicians to be the council’s office bearers.
The major challenge is that the office bearers voted into office carry with them their political agendas that appear different from the objectives of the city or town to achieve economic development. The voting process is producing city councillors and city mayors whose political objectives are misaligned with the Government’s economic development trajectory because the Government is formed by a different political party.
This means the equation of opposition politics is at play to suppress development to elevate a political stature, and projects lined up by the Government to improve the lives of people in urban centres are dressed down by councillors in power because of the misalignment of the politics.
The political jamboree is producing office bearers in council offices whose mandate is misaligned and fully embroiled in political advancement instead of economic development to achieve the country’s prosperity.
City branding demands one voice, collaborative thinking and patriotism of stakeholders in the category of the leadership, namely, councillors and city mayors.
City branding to achieve economic prosperity in the tourism sector calls for the patriotism of the city’s mayor and councillors to attend national events such as the Heroes Day, Independence Day and heroes’ burials, among others.
The national events are part and parcel of the country’s tourism products.
Heroes Day, Independence Day and heroes’ burials fall in the category of tourism products of a saleable nature globally, and Zimbabwe is no exception.
City fathers should feel proud to attend the events to achieve top-level city branding and attract the attention of global tourists to visit Zimbabwe. However, the current scenario in Zimbabwe is that councillors and mayors who belong to the opposition political leadership often give a cold shoulder to events of a national character to pay allegiance to their political objectives to oppose Government programmes.
This means city branding is a struggle for Zimbabwe to embrace full-scale economic development. This misalignment is an important factor that demands further analysis to ensure that the driver of economic development in Zimbabwe is on point.
The way forward: The political equation needs realignment. The city mayor and councillors are the major players in city branding in terms of the law of the land in Zimbabwe, and, therefore, political interests should be aligned with national interests to capture the fortunes in the tourism industry.
The worldwide tourism development route demands that cities should compete for attention to attract investments. City branding is, therefore, a competition issue for cities to differentiate themselves to become subjects of attraction to achieve attention from global investors.
This means councillors and mayors in the country should speak with one voice in both politics and business to attain the goals of city branding.
City branding demands stakeholder and alignment of interests that are beyond political party allegiance.
For example, the local authority running City of Harare’s affairs has reduced the Sunshine City into a dustbin to achieve the political score through blame games because of the misalignment in politics. To the opposition, poor performance in service delivery of the city is a political score to gain the popular vote, and this is a serious misalignment that needs to be corrected to ensure that the country achieves economic prosperity.
The solution to this problem is for the Government to revise the Urban Local Authority Act to establish a supplementary law that offers the ruling party running Government to hold enough power to appoint people with authority to run the affairs of the city in alignment with the Government mandate.
This is an area that demands attention because patriotism of city fathers and city councillors is in short supply in the country.
In conclusion, city branding is a serious economic development trajectory meant to globalise the country’s tourism industry, and, therefore, alignment of political objectives of city fathers. It is, therefore, a priority.
Political scores and political interests should be subordinated by the spirit of economic development that is characterised by patriotism and collaborative thinking.
But, in the absence of political alignment, which is caused by the country’s voting process, the Government should step in to institute practical alignment through the enactment of supplementary laws and policies that address the loopholes that suppresses the full-scale economic development. Zimbabwe is a former colony and therefore the continuous development and revision of laws to align with issues that work should be continuous.
*Charles Mavhunga co-authored textbooks in Business Enterprising Skills and is currently studying for a Ph.D in Management at Bindura University. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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