Minister advises Matabeleland North tourism players to aggregate activities

ENVIRONMENT, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu has advised players in the tourism sector in Matabeleland North to aggregate their activities and collectively market the province.

Minister Ndlovu, who was on a three-day tour of facilities operated through a partnership between the Forestry Commission and private players in Hwange and Binga districts last week, said Matabeleland North has the potential to drive the country’s economy towards a US$5 billion tourism industry by 2025 envisioned by the Government.

The Forestry Commission is courting investors for partnership to revitalise its operations and realise full potential.

The Government designated Victoria Falls as a Special Economic Zone with focus on tourism and has started crafting a blueprint to guide operationalisation of the Integrated Development Programme/Conceptual Development Framework for the Victoria Falls-Hwange — Binga SEZ, whose idea is to integrate economic activities, catapult growth and improve livelihoods in the province.

Matabeleland North is endowed with vast natural resources including minerals and forests as well as a rich culture supported by a hospitable population.

The province is naturally the country’s tourism capital as it is home to the Rainforest in the prime resort town of Victoria Falls and has the country’s biggest game park — Hwange National Park, Chamabondo, Zambezi and Victoria Falls national parks where the Big Five game and various other species and birds, as well as several tourism activities are found.

Tourism is one of the key economic drivers alongside agriculture, manufacturing and mining.

Speaking at the end of the tour, Minister Ndlovu identified some loopholes in the tourism sector, among them disaggregation of tourism activities, which to some extent, scares away visitors or paints a wrong picture of the country.

This also is the reason for multiple licences and fees payable to various operators and institutions, which visitors and investors have complained about over the years, said Minister Ndlovu.

“The main reason for this tour was to see how best we could assist Forestry Commission with the assets they have and to enhance their capacity and capability in furthering indigenous forest conservation. There were so many lessons learnt in forestry and wildlife conservation and the many partners coming in for wildlife related activities is a clear indication that wildlife is the trump card for tourism,” he said.

“This country can grow from tourism alone but there are so many loopholes, which we need to plug. For example, we don’t know how many people come to these facilities, how much they pay and whether we are realising full potential.

I believe that Matabeleland North alone can contribute immensely to tourism so we want to bring all these together,” said Minister Ndlovu.

He called for product diversification as a way of enticing visitors to stay longer. Some operators have tried the approach especially during the festive season where they offer packages comprising various activities together with accommodation.

“Matabeleland North is quite huge and we want operators to work with the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority to aggregate all activities to be able to sell the province as one. Let us aggregate these so that if there are 40 activities for example, a visitor can stay longer. I would like to see a situation where a visitor will only make one payment and it is up to the players to disaggregate the money,” said the minister.

He said sometimes clients are frustrated by making multiple payments to different institutions.

“A visitor doesn’t have to go to every facility to pay, that’s tiring. You would rather pay US$500 once than pay US$50 at 10 different points. Psychologically that’s a killer because what they then go and say about Zimbabwe is different.

“So, we want to optimise and we are quite sure about realising our US$5 billion economy. We said it as a statement and what follows is hard work from everyone, and we will make sure that we push everyone to work harder and realise our capabilities,” said Minister Ndlovu . –-chronicle.co.zw