Thanks and many thanks to you all

the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority saw it fit to bestow upon me – the son of a villager – the Tourism Personality of the Year 2011 and the Minister’s Special Recognition awards.
That I am a wordsmith, I will not deny but it is the industry and the journalistic fraternity and the villagers back home that have inspired me, through and through.

That I won the award, co-scooped last year by businessman Philip Chiyangwa and then Zimbabwe Tourism Council president Emmanuel Fundira, speaks volumes about how I have revolutionised journalism to have broader meaning, than being mere spectators and commentators.
Basically the award is a sign that journalists should no longer be spectators and commentators but participants in nation building and defining the direction this great country should take.

Journalists have a positive role to play and tourism being the harbinger of peace, business and investment needs a lot of sober writing and constructive criticism so that things work.
It is almost a decade since I ventured into writing stories on tourism and in 2004 I started a column Weekend Travel in The Herald, where I slowly started biting my piece of the cake and making inroads.
A few years later we were to rebrand the column into Tourism Matrix and bring back to the Friday edition of The Herald, thanks to Pikirayi Deketeke and William Chikoto.

For those in the know it is very difficult to maintain a column for that long and fail to run out of ideas.
One of the greatest wordsmiths of my time, Robson Sharuko, will testify as he shares a lot with me.
Over the years I have trudged the length and breadth of Zimbabwe, at times using my own resources and risking my life, all for the cause of tourism and conservation.

I love nature. I love travelling inasmuch as I love chugging down my coke. I am also passionate about my writing skills and style and I even put effort in trying to describe air and wind inasmuch as I try to describe graphically, the wilderness and its activities.

At some stage I was about to surrender but I should thank Rose Mukogo, that good sister of mine who sits of the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority board for urging me on.
Outside the column, I have written stories on tourism and conservation for five consecutive years, I have won the Tourism Writer of the Year award and only two days ago, I won the National Tourism Personality of the Year 2011.

Prior to that I have won two environmental awards and a multifarious array of journalism awards in politics, development, business, court reporting and rural development but my passion is with environment and tourism.

This particular 2011 award is for every journalist in Zimbabwe, for my mother and father who should be twisting and turning in their graves with satisfaction. I think I justify the reason they left me on this world.
At this stage, it would be improper not to mention Environment and Natural Resources Management Minister Francis Nhema, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi, Parks director-general Vitalis Chadenga.

ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke, Parks public relations manager Caroline Washaya-Moyo, RTG chief Chipo Mtasa and ZTA chief operating officer Givemore Chidzidzi, among others for supporting me in this journey.

Thanks again to every journalist in Zimbabwe. This one is for you. We are no longer spectators but stakeholders.