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Isdore Guvamombe Tourism Matrix
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, the country’s vanguard of tourism and hospitality industry, has scooped three awards of excellence for its outstanding performance in marketing, developing and promoting tourism in the country.Megafest Business awarded ZTA the Most Outstanding Organisation of 2013 while ZTA chief executive Mr Karikoga Kaseke scooped the Megafest Tourism Personality of The Year 2013.
While the Megafest Awards were being held at the Harare International Conference Centre, ZTA was scooping yet another award, this time from the Diplomat, The Outstanding Contribution to Diplomacy.
The awards, by Megafest Business and the Diplomat, come at a time when ZTA has undertaken to increase the tourism industry’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product from the current 10 percent to 15 percent by 2015.
The three awards can be unpacked to contextualise them in that the Megafest awards point to ZTA’s ultra combative and hands on approach to the development, promotion and development of tourism which has seen it come up with a tapestry of roadshows, an international carnival and the opening up of offices throughout the country and in essentials regions abroad.
The Diplomat awards come in the wake of spirited efforts by ZTA to influence the change of perception in the tourism industry through it celebrity host programme and the perception management programme.
Those who have been following events in the tourism industry know that Zimbabwe was placed under travel warnings and travel bans by Europe around 2005 and that it was through ZTA’s celebrity host programme, constructive diplomatic engagements that the bans were lifted in 2010.
It was ZTA’s diplomatic offensive that saw many countries in Europe agree that Zimbabwe was indeed a safe and attractive tourist destination. Despite negative perception, ZTA continued to exhibit at all international travel expositions, giving itself the chance to engage with influential decision makers.
It was after such lengthy, diplomatic engagements that Zimbabwe became overly accepted in the international tourism family, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, hence the hosting last year of the UNWTO, General Assembly in Victoria Falls.
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