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The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority will conduct a ministerial roundtable and also honour outstanding personnel from the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the media, who have executed their duties in the best manner that has had an impact on tourism as inaugural additions to this year’s edition of the Sanganai/Hlanganani World TourismExpo to be held on 18-20 June at the Harare International Conference Centre in the capital.
The introduction of the ministerial roundtable to be held on the first day of the tourism expo is in line with ZTA repositioning of the Sanganai/Hlanganani tourism expo into a more productive and business focused fair.
Running under the theme: “Tourism; Africa’s sleeping giant towards double-digit market share by year 2020,” guest of honour will be Tourism Minister of South Africa, Hon Derek Hanekom.
“We have an addition to the usual Sanganai/Hlanganani timetable with the introduction of the ministerial roundtable, again another requirement by the UNWTO which puts our international travel and tourism expo on to a policy level where industry and other stakeholders can interrogate us on policy issues”, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister, Engineer Walter Mzembi told journalists in Harare this week.
He said present at the roundtable will be his fellow ministerial counterparts local and foreign, industry stakeholders and the academia from the University of Zimbabwe to assist in the interrogation of pressing concerns in the spirit of academic freedom.
Top of the agenda will be discussions on the region’s stunted growth in global tourism which has witnessed the African continent constituting a paltry 5 percent both in arrival and revenue from the global tourism economy, issues around destination competitiveness, airline viability across the region, taxation on tourism and the importance of revising our visa regimes.
Minister Mzembi also added that the chief anchor of this year’s Sanganai will be the revival of city tourism as part of our package as a destination, but raised concerns at the spontaneous vending currently witnessed on our major cities and called for an urgent solution to this trend as it detriments the appearance of our cities, but said vending markets where also tourism-pullers only if done orderly.
He also said on the night of the buyers and media dinner, the ZTA has added the awards presentation in honour of the policemen and women and the journalists who have done outstanding works which has had a positive bearing on tourism throughout the course of the year.
“We would like to honour our members of the ZRP for the peace we enjoy in this country which gives us a competitive edge so we saw it befitting to honour the best corporal who have executed their duties in a manner which has had impact on tourism.
“We also feel the need to do the same with our dearest partners, the media, although this was impromptu, we shall honour those who have documented positively the Zimbabwean story as it is critical to tourism growth,” he added.
The goodwill gesture comes as a time when the ZTA is basking in glory of the recent winning of the 2015 Routes Destination Marketing Award during the Routes Middle East and Africa Networking Evening held on June 1 in Bahrain.
The annual Routes Marketing awards are highly regarded as the most prestigious awards in the aviation industry as they are voted for and judged by the airline network planning community and ZTA won the Destination Marketing Award beating other short-listed tourism boards such as Jordan Tourism Board, Qatar Tourism Authority, Tanzania Tourism Board and Egyptian Tourism Authority.
This year’s edition marks the 8th Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo and was scheduled for June, not its conventional October timing citing buyers’ recommendations which is also in line with the repositioning exercise which started last year.
Online Reporter