admin(IG) talks to Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi (WM) about the bid.IG: Before we talk about the bid that we won, its meaning and way forward, you have been Minister for almost three years now, how has it been at the helm of the tourism and hospitality industry, which has been chosen as one of the pillars of the country’s economic turnaround programme?
WM: Well, it has been very challenging and also a very singular honour from the Head of State to choose one amongst our generation to lead one of the four economic pillars upon which our economic turnaround is underpinned. And here, I talk tourism, which has been bounded together with mining manufacturing and agriculture, as the four cornerstones of our economic turnaround strategy in Zimbabwe.
IG: So it is quite an experience…
WM: I obviously came in 29 years after independence and it is an honour to be presided over by a first republic President. I can tell you that it is the joy of every Cabinet Minister to be presided over by a first republic President. I can tell so after talking to some ministers from countries that have had two or three presidents; they say it is not the same. They will tap different knowledge and experiences about our founding principles as a nation. About issues around our nationhood about sacrosanct issues that should be protected at all costs. Issues about the independence and territorial integrity. Issues around our sovereignty and our Zimbabweaness. Really it’s very different and I am personally happy to be part of the group that is presided over by this icon.
I am also happy to be associating in the same Cabinet, with liberation icons. It is actually a singular honour to share the same space with the likes of Mai Mujuru, John Landa Nkomo the Mnangagwas, the Sekeramai’s, Didymus Mutasa, and many other icons. To be picked by one’s generation to serve with these men and women who have contributed very much and who have excelled in the liberation of our country is definitely a very exclusive honour.
IG: But how has been your stay at the Ministry?
WM: Having said what I have just said at the beginning, I have to acknowledge the responsibility bestowed upon me to lead an economic pillar that really is a catalyst of the recovery of Zimbabwe. It is also another honour and I recall that when President Mugabe tasked me to serve one of the attributes he said to have spotted in me was that he was looking for creativity. And that when you look at hospitality in terms of creativity the sky is the limit.
IG: What creativity have you brought?
WM: I sought at a very early stage to redefine tourism in terms of the creativity that the President wanted to see in that sector. I defined tourism not as a product anymore but as an end product, which is enabled by all other sectors such as Information Communication Technology, water, energy, banking, transport, destination accessibility and many others. Tourism is the end product.
IG: What have you done to achieve that?
WM: I decided to designate the whole country as a tourism development zone as opposed to the old colonial definition which was selective about designated tourism destinations. Victoria Falls was seen as a product on its own, Kariba, the Eastern Highlands, the Great Zimbabwe the same and many other tourist attractions. I decided to politically redefine tourism to mean the entirety of Zimbabwe. The whole country is now a tourism development zone.
IG: What have been your achievements?
WM: I don’t want to talk about my own achievements as Minster. I think it’s really incumbent upon others to say these have been your achievements; these have been your failures. The awards should be a scorecard given to us by others and not ourselves. The honour bestowed upon me as minister is a manifestation of things we have done, me and the sector.
But anyway, my success has been winning a seat in the executive council of UNWTO, which we have successfully used to leverage our position against sanctions and travel warnings. This was followed by my being voted the African Tourism Minister of the Year from Africa investor, followed by a local endorsement through the Zimbabwe Institute of Management, the Public Service Manager of the Year. More recently, I was the winner of the China Africa Economic Co-operation Contributor Award. We have another award we are going to receive in London in November, given to us by the Americans themselves, who had initially placed travel advisory on us.
You see when I was appointed Minster I presided over a sector that had blanket travel bans from every source market. So when your yesteryear enemies become your brand endorsers, it means something is happening. My ability to leverage with the UNWTO seat to remove the travel ban is viewed by ministers in my sector the world over as a success.
The rebranding of Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Zimbabwe A World of Wonders is also considered a success story. I must say this is a feat also emulated by Britain, which launched its new brand two months ago. The improvement in arrival statistics over the past two years resulted in our pick of 2,5 million arrivals in 2010 and revenue generation of about US$770 million per year is considered an achievement by other people.
IG: Are you sure our tourism industry is growing at that rate?
WM: Sure! We are growing an annualized rate of 8,2 percent. The acclamation by the World Tourism Council that we are the second largest growing tourism economy by GDP contribution for the next decade, after China is yet another achievement. And more recently our ascension to the number two tourism slot after South Africa, after the tourism barometer showed that after the meltdown in Morocco and Tunisia, they should be downgraded.
IG: What is our tourism growth rate?
WM: In terms of GDP we will close this year at 9,1 percent and I have set a target for the sector of 15 percent contribution to GDP by 2015.
IG: How did you arrive at this?
WM: I do so by observing the real events and how practically we have been going.
IG: From which markets are the majority of our tourists coming from?
WM: You will be surprised that the West still provides the highest number of tourists. Notwithstanding our political fallout with the Americans they still remain our biggest source market for tourists. In that bracket you have all our detractors, political detractors or perceived political detractors providing the most travellers. America, Britain and Germany have sanctions, economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe yet paradoxically they still provide the highest number of arrivals into Zimbabwe. So tourism has defied the politics, it has positioned itself above the disjuncture between Zimbabwe and its detractors. And if you go on the global tourism index, it outperforms and continues to outperform even the country brand. It is the only sector doing better than the country brand.
IG: And now to the bid. We have won so what is the way forward?
WM: Yes, that bid we won. It is for us Zimbabwe and Zambia but the truth is that the challenges are immense. I think winning the bid was the easier part than what lies ahead.
IG: What are the challenges?
WM: We must make sure that we ring-fence and retain the bid through and through until 2013 from any threats, perceived or otherwise. You might not be aware that when South Africa won the bid for the 2010 World Cup Soccer Finals, there were detractors waiting by the sidelines and always told Fifa, “We told you so, they can’t do it.” They always tried to get it away from South Africa. The same will happen to us. Not everyone is happy that we won the bid, there will always be people reminding UNWTO that Zimbabwe and Zambia can’t. We told you they can’t! “We told you so, they can’t, we will always remind you, we told you so. We told you so!” Those who were against us will always seize the slightest opportunity to discredit us.
So our immediate task is to make sure we politically and socially ring fence this achievement until we execute it in 2013.
IG: How do we do that?
WM: We need to go on a branding exercise and do a Swot analysis on the event itself and examine what we want to achieve. The way I see it goes beyond 2013.
The first thing is that as Ministry we need to put in place a working matrix of advisory groups network and a 2013 eminent persons advisory group which will advise me and the Zambian Minister. Immediately after winning our bid, I sat down and came up with a 10-point plan in which our way forward will be underpinned. We must outline the overarching vision of the project because so far the project has been understood within the bidding team. We need the nation to understand, we need everyone to understand the bid. We need to outline the project vision. I have also directed that my team does an analysis of the immediate and past UNWTO general assemblies so that we can learn from them and set benchmarks for the project.
We want to deal with the weaknesses and threats of the project. Beyond that we must do a project packaging and secure intergovernmental by-in and communicate the same language.
IG: How are you going to do that?
WM: We will soon recede to a workshop to draw the timelines for each player in the sector.
IG: At some stage you said you needed the President’s help.
WM: What we seek from the President having already appended his signature to the bid is to now declare the UNWTO general assembly as a national event.
By so doing, it will naturally attract the participation of the various state actors and non-state actors that are usually involved in national events.
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