Mauritius backs Zim/Zambia UNWTO bid

World Tourism Organisation’s General Assembly at the Victoria Falls.
The 2011 assembly is to be held in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea, this weekend.

The weekend assembly is expected to decide which country would host the next event and Zimbabwe is optimistic it would win the bid, ahead of Russia, Turkey, Jordan and Qatar.
If successful, the bid would bring into Zimbabwe high-powered delegates from 176 countries and would be the ultimate endorsement of the national tourism brand, “Zimbabwe – A World of Wonders”.
Sir Jugnauth undertook to secure his government’s support for what is being increasingly viewed as an “African” bid following a discussion with Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister, Engineer Walter Mzembi, on the sidelines of the China-Africa Investment Forum in Hangzhou, China.

President Mugabe and then Zambian president Rupiah Banda, as well as the Sadc ministers of tourism, had already thrown their weight behind the bid.
Minister Mzembi will this week travel to Zambia to brief the recently-elected President of Zambia, Michael Sata and his administration.
The two co-hosting countries are expected to share the honour as well as the costs of hosting the General Assembly.

Minister Mzembi is also the current sub-Saharan representative on the Executive Council of the UNWTO.
But the hosting of the assembly at the Victoria Falls would most undoubtedly, in the medium and long term, benefit the Southern African region as a whole.

In this regard, the accent would be put on the promotion of regionally integrated products, such as the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTC) and the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZATLCA) before, during and after the 2013 General Assembly.
Minister Mzembi will visit Zambia en-route to Gyeongju in the Republic of Korea, where the whole General Assembly will consider the bid for adoption.

Prior to that he was scheduled to meet his South African counterpart, Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who is influential in the BRICS (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) and Top 20 (T20) Tourism Economies, a G20 tourism equivalent body.