ZTA rules out awards

Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) will again this year suspend the National Annual Tourism Awards.
National Annual Tourism Awards (Nata) was introduced a few years ago by the authority to honour luminaries for their outstanding contribution in the growth and development of Zimbabwe’s tourism sector.

In an interview, ZTA head of public relations and corporate affairs Sugar Chagonda confirmed that they would again suspend the event this year.

“Were the (Nata) awards held last year? We will again not have them this year. I was out of the country so I will have to find out more details in that regard, call me later,” said Chagonda.

Efforts to get a comment from Chagonda by the time of going to print yesterday were futile as his phone went unanswered on several occasions.

Last year, the awards ceremony was initially set for 13 December before the event was postponed by a week to 21 December.

ZTA said last year’s event could not be held as initially scheduled due to a technical glitch that saw stakeholders not being able to send nomination forms through the Internet platform.

The tourism body said the ceremony had been extended by a week hoping challenges that were experienced on its online platform would have been rectified.

ZTA again could not host the event on 21 December saying they had decided to reschedule the event as they had overlooked that during that period most companies would have gone on annual shut down.

The authority was on record saying as a result, the event had been tentatively moved to early this year before it was cancelled.

ZTA availed Nata awards with the ultimate aim of promoting a healthy competition  in the tourism sector for sustainable development.

Individuals, companies and institutions were rewarded for their efforts in categories that include investment and product development, maintenance of consistent high quality service and standards as well as contribution to destination marketing, tourism manager of the year, tourism personality of the year, and the tourism image builder of the year.