The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) is working with various stakeholders to identify and preserve historical sites within its area of jurisdiction as part of its efforts to reap the benefits of tourism.
Speaking after a tour of some of Bulawayo’s tourists’ attraction sites on Thursday last week City economic development officer Mr Kholisani Moyo said the local authority has set up a committee comprising of various stakeholders in the tourism industry as it moves to improve the contribution of the industry in the country’s second largest city.
The KoBulawayo Tourism Committee comprises of Government Ministries and departments, Bulawayo Publicity Association, hoteliers and tour operators.
He said Bulawayo has numerous tourist attraction sites which are at the hands of the local authority while others are managed by the National Museum and Monuments of Zimbabwe as well as private players.
“We are in the process of identifying all tourist attraction sites that are in the hands of the city council. We have made inroads in identifying these, for example we have The Hanging Tree, the Inxwala site, Stanley Square, McDonald Hall, the Wishing Well, Joshua Nkomo statue, Gardens at the Post Office, Centenary Park, Mzilikazi Arts and Craft Centre.
“These are some of the areas as local authorities we are now supposed to look at and come up with ways of improving them, sprucing them up. Some of the sites are not visible to the community and even to tour operators. You can’t tell that they are of national significance. So we want to identify those sites and then we mark them and preserve them,” said Mr Moyo.
He said in an effort to grow the city’s tourism sector plans are underway to link it with other players in South Africa.
“We also want to link the tourism sector with other players in South Africa, specifically our twin city, Durban. They have done a lot in terms of promoting the tourism sector, so we also want to link with them. We are in the process of arranging visits or trips so that we appreciate what they do.
“They were here in April during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair time and they actually told us about their programme on township tourism, this is exactly what we also want to do to promote that area. We will try to link with them and have a study tour so that we understand exactly how we to promote tourism in the area,” said Mr Moyo.
He said the city’s township tourism package would comprise of taking tourists to the traditional medicines pharmacy popularly known as Emkambo in Makokoba, residence of the country’s soccer icons, the Ndlovu brothers, Jairos Jiri Centre among other places. Mr Moyo said there was a need for the local authority to come up with a comprehensive database to ascertain the number of tourists that visit the city’s attractions and formulating ways of generating revenue from such visits.
“We have seen some tourists coming to the see the City Hall, just to understand how this building was constructed because there are a lot of things that you can learn from the City Hall but we don’t have a record where we are recording each tourist that comes by. This is the information we need when developing the sector.
“I think that information is still lacking, this is something that we need to build on and come up with a database so that we have an understanding of what we have and even make money from those things that we have because as it is now city council is not even getting any revenue,” he said.
Silwane Tours and Safaris director Mr Sikhawuliso Sibanda said there was a need for tourism players and the generality of populace to be well acquainted with the city’s historical sites to impart the knowledge to tourists that visit them.
“There is a need to bring all stakeholders on the same page to understand what we are talking about. Bulawayo is a historical city. The big history is in Makokoba (township) so we have to consider it as well and also the other aim we were putting together today is to identify those sites for future markings.
“We want to mark them as historic sites and put a bit of décor on them and a bit of information . . . the stakeholders know it partially. They don’t know all of it, so to then sell it to the next person, it becomes difficult. Hence the need for this kind of induction, when we talk with the same voice and say we want to mark these areas and package them and how do we market ourselves out there,” said Mr Sibanda.
He said Bulawayo was one of the few countries in the world with an array of historic buildings, which can play a huge part in promoting the city as a tourist destination.
