When a year is never too long or short

Yes, it was time to celebrate and time to rejoice but now, it is the time to deliver.
The celebrations to host the UNWTO spilled into the festive season, and therein lies our folly.
We now need to quickly jump out of the holiday dustbin and work our way towards putting up a memorable event that will be remembered by the whole world for many years to come.
Now is the time to show the world that we are indeed capable of hosting such a mega event, bringing together 176 countries.
There is no doubt that the Victoria Falls, the epicentre of tourism in both Zimbabwe and Zambia, can hold its own but the tourism industry should immediately put its act together to ensure that we do not lose the bid.
There are “vultures” circling on the sidelines to snatch at the most convenient opportunity, the bid from us. They will always find one or two faults, blow them out of proportion and capitalise on them to make sure that little Zimbabwe and Zambia lose the bid.
The National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, which oversees the falls themselves, must be commended for moving with speed to spruce up the entrance and put in place a pro-active ticketing system, that makes it easy and convenient for the tourists.
Parks director-general Vitalis Chadenga and his team should be applauded for keeping the falls as natural as possible and for ensuring that the falls remain very attractive.
They should also be applauded for keeping the adjacent Zambezi National Park and the Victoria Falls National Park as standing last vestiges of nature’s exhaustless generosity, where wildlife frolic wild and free.
However, that alone is not enough; all players must follow suit and put their houses in order.
A year might appear very long or too short, depending on what we will have achieved as the tourism industry. Losing the bid should never be an option for it is akin to losing food which is already in the mouth. Only a fool can do that.
Twelve moons are too short a period for people who are not organised but can be very long for people who are organised and ready.
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry have played their part and will continue playing their mandatory role but fears are abound that the tourism and hospitality industry might not move in cohesion to enable stakeholders to get maximum harvest from the mega event.
There is no doubt that 2012 is the year when all the ground work should be done, failing which we might kiss good buy or is it goodbye to hosting the event.
No one doubts ZTA’s ability and neither does anyone doubt the National Parks’ capacity and ability but a lot of work needs to be done by the industry itself to ensure that it benefits.
The irony of it is that the tourism industry itself did not participate at the last UNWTO General Assembly in South Korea, where it was supposed to study ways of tapping into such an event.
That act was shameless. To date, I wonder if they have a clue on what it means to host such an event and avoid the South Africa World Cup scenario where most local companies ran into serious financial losses.

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