The Sunday News
ZIMBABWE’S improved tourism growth rate and enhanced focus on brand strategy has been recognised with the country being accorded the African Rising Star Country Branding Award by Madrid-based strategy consulting firm, Bloom Consulting.
According to the report released by Bloom Consulting, Zimbabwe won the award after having moved five places up from position 18 to13 out of 37 African countries evaluated by the firm.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive Mr Karikoga Kaseke said the award was an indication that brand Zimbabwe had a bright future and paid tribute to the advocates of the brand “Zimbabwe A world of wonders” who were responsible for promoting the destination across major tourism markets.
“We are excited to be a recipient of this high status award and we will take seriously the citation by Bloom consulting to improve the areas where we are not doing well as a destination to further improve our brand equity,” said Mr Kaseke.
Some of the identified areas include digital demand and online performance.
Mr Kaseke said the destination marketing sought to improve the destination so as to score a place in the top 10 in the next three years.
“As a sector we will invest efforts in identifying areas of strategic joint marketing with various partners and stakeholders in order to further increase our brand visibility across all source markets,” Mr Kaseke said.
According to Bloom consulting, ranking destinations is meant to measure the performance and effectiveness of each country brand from a tourism perspective.
The measurement tool (algorithm methodology) which was used for these awards was premised mainly on four variables namely economic performance, digital demand, country branding strategy rating and online performance.
Economic performance looked at the country’s success to achieve financial gain from the international visitors.
This was derived from data indications circulated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) on tourism receipts, that is, tourism receipts growth rate for over a five-year period (2008 — 2012).
For digital demand, it was conducted through the measurement tool called the Digital Demand. The tool searches for the total online search volume for tourism related activities and attractions within each of the countries evaluated.
The more online tourism related activities a country had the more appealing the brand is considered to be.
The Country Branding Strategy (CBS) rating evaluated the accuracy of the strategy by each National Tourism Organisation (NTO) for all the countries through the comparative analysis of brand tags as measured by the digital demand tool (40 brand tags grouped in five key topics: Culture, Leisure, Outdoors, Niche Markets and Target Markets).
The more the NTO focused, the more it received higher rankings. On online performance, digital strategic positioning of each country was evaluated based on the web analytics and social media data. The higher the online diffusion through websites or other online platforms was the greater the brand’s overall success.
Stakeholders in the tourism sector said the first quarter of the year was usually a low season and the decline could also be attributed to the after-effects of the Ebola scare which saw a number of groups last year cancelling their visits to Africa, Zimbabwe included.
Meanwhile, stakeholders in the tourism industry said Zimbabwe still needed to do more to improve arrivals in the country.
This was after figures release by ZTA for the first quarter of the year showed a slight 0,3 percent decline compared to the prior year.
“Naturally the first quarter of the year is not a high season and activity is usually low but this year was made worse by the Ebola scare as most tourists cancelled their trips as they characterised Africa as one big country instead of a continent with different countries,” said Mr Sijabuliso Ndlovu, an operator in Victoria Falls.
Employers Association of Tourism and Safari Operators president Mr Clemence Mukwasi said the tourism industry was a sensitive industry that responds to global issues hence disease outbreaks in West Africa and terrorism in East Africa and the global financial crisis all contributed to the depression.
He, however, added that signs were abound that the industry was about to be revived.
“Victoria Falls is a must destination and as a result a new market is surging. The young are again interested in doing the adventurous activities like rafting and helicopter flights which are turning out to be a preferred service,” said Mr Mukwasi.
He urged joint marketing between Government and the private sector and said some of the issues that needed to be addressed included removing border barriers, improving the visa regimes as well as regional integration.
