Stakeholders to review tourism policy

Rejoice Makoni Herald Correspondent

Stakeholders in the tourism sector met in Harare yesterday for a national tourism consultative workshop to give updates and interventions on the review of the tourism policy.

The policy seeks to grow the tourism sector through delivering quality and sustainable tourism products and the outcome of the process will feed into the national policy that will guide tourism development from next year to 2028.

It replaces the 2014 to 2018 policy, whose review was hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Consultant Dr Shepherd Nyaruwata said there was need to review the tourism policy in line with changing trends and national blueprints.

“The tourism policy has outlived its usefulness in view of current Government development blueprints including Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy 1,” said Dr Nyaruwata.

“The policy builds on, and updates the principles, rules and aspirations for the sector, putting particular emphasis on its resilience to climatic change and pandemics and adapting to new market demands. It is a framework that guides the overall development of the sector up to 2030.

“The sector assumed a recovery trajectory in 2022 with arrivals growth of 174 percent in 2021, reaching 1043 781 tourists arrivals. The recovery of the sector has continued into 2023 with total arrivals for the period January-June 2023 recording a 50 percent increase compared to the same period last year.”

Dr Nyaruwata said the policy aim was to make Zimbabwe one of the leading regional and international destination for nature, culture, adventure and a beacon of excellency in sustainable tourism.

World Bank acting Country Manager Fadzai Mukonoweshuro said the development of the tourism sector was key for the country’s economic development plan.

“The World Bank through International Finance Corporation (IFC) IFC has supported the tourism policy review . This has been a consultative process and the key take always of the process are the results that we hope to achieve after implementation of the policy,” she said.

Government seeks to grow the tourism sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product to US$5 billion a year by 2025. It also seeks to push the sector’s contribution to 10 percent of GDP from the current 5 percent.