adminThis is because the country is endowed with breathtaking tourism drawcards that are the envy of many countries, and is a country at peace.
So the statement by UNWTO executive director Dr Harsh Varma that Zimbabwe won the bid on merit because it has the right ingredients puts the icing on the cake and we should now be putting our shoulders to the wheel to make sure that come 2013, all the facilities in the prime resort town of Victoria Falls are spruced up and ready to host the largest tourism gathering on our soil.
Yesterday, we quoted Dr Varma saying the Victoria Falls, which will jointly host the UNWTO meeting with Livingstone in Zambia, is a tourism destination endowed with natural resources and friendly people.
“Zimbabwe was awarded the bid on merit. Since the day I arrived in Victoria Falls, I was met by smiling people and there is good infrastructure as well. Zimbabwe should present itself as it is in its natural form and the Government and the private sector should now work together to see to it that the UNWTO General Assembly is successfully hosted.”
In fact, many visitors to the country have found it so attractive that they have come back. From history to art to culture to the outdoors, Zimbabwe attractions are plentiful.
From the majestic Victoria Falls, the intriguing ancient city of Great Zimbabwe, the magnificent Matopos, the wildlife sanctuaries at Hwange National Park and Gonarezhou Transfrontier Park, the sprawling Lake Kariba and the mysterious and beautiful Eastern Highlands, Zimbabwe is blessed with awesome tourist attraction centres that have tourists flocking to the country even when our detractors were bent on tarnishing our image.
To spice it up is the warm and hospitable Zimbabweans.
Our biggest challenge now is to complete the $350 million convention centre in the resort town for the conference and we are glad that Government is giving this matter top priority as evidenced by the fact that Vice-President Mujuru is in charge of this project.
While there are already five-star hotels in the resort town which compares favourably with any around the world and can host big conferences, the convention centre will give the resort town more capacity, meaning that it would be able to host more of such big conferences in future.
We implore the authorities to ensure that construction of the convention centre is done and on schedule. The upgrading of the Victoria Falls Airport to accommodate bigger planes should also be speeded up.
National carrier, Air Zimbabwe, should also come to the party because it has been the missing link in the tourism industry for too long. Efforts must be made to make sure that all our major tourist attraction centres are linked by both land and air so that tourists can sample them with ease.
As we have said before, hosting the UNWTO will come with added benefits of further marketing our tourism industry which has been on a recovery path over the past two years.
Zimbabwe’s tourism earnings jumped 47 percent last year to $770 million, as the number of visitors rose 15 percent to 2.3 million nationally, with Victoria Falls the country’s biggest attraction, according to the figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality.
This figure is set to be surpassed this year as more and more tourists visit the country.
We therefore need to move with speed to smoothen all the bottlenecks in the tourism industry.
derick.khumalo