The Sunday News
Phineas Chauke
THE wide streets of Bulawayo are cool, quiet and tranquil at night. The peace and calm enhances human capability to connect with their surrounding and internalise it with little hindrance.
Vehicle traffic is very low and the buildings in the city centre appear more clearly without the bustling of people characterising Bulawayo during day time. The landscape looks majestic under the bright lights of the city. Isn’t it just the ideal time to take visitors around and show them the city?
Night tourism provides a more favourable opportunity for those tourists who are either busy during the day or simply can’t stand the Zimbabwean sun during a summer day. It therefore, has the potential to bridge the seasonal gap in tourist activity.
As exciting as it may sound, night tourism is not a common practice in Bulawayo, though it would not be completely true to say it is not happening. It probably only needs to be nurtured and expanded to reach full potential. The practice is, however, common in other parts of the world including China and USA.
There are facilities that should be put in place for this to be successfully adopted in any place. While day time touring depends on natural lighting of the abundant African sun, night touring would require that the tour routes have adequate lighting. This does not only increase visibility of the attractions but also adds immensely to the aesthetics and ambience of the cityscape. In Guangzhou, China the need to extend the time of activity beyond ordinary day and to add colour to the night activities for tourism saw the commencement of the nightscape lighting project which bore massive results for their tourism.
Lighting is also critical for security of the tourists. Darkness harbours all sorts of vice and evil and that could culminate in incidents where tourists lose precious belongings to thugs and in extreme situations, they could get injured or lose life itself.
Secure environments are requisites for tourism. How much can we claim as a city to have that security needed for full exploration of the city at night by tourists. Tourists, especially foreigners are generally associated with money and that may heighten the risk of them being mugged at night.
Night tourism would also require some of the popular tourist facilities to stay open at odd hours. The only places in Bulawayo that are open at night are nightclubs and bars. While those are essential facilities for night tourism, the product mix is limited and that may bore the visitors. Galleries, curio markets, movie houses and theatre centres should be open and accessible at night if we are to go the night tourism route.
There has to be a vibrant night life that inspires confidence and assures the tourists that they are still in a normal inhabited city, not some abandoned ghost city with echoes of the past as its only life.
Night events spur night tourism and they need to be encouraged. City tours at night are breathtaking with the contrast between the golden appearance of the well- illuminated sides of buildings and their blind sides. The nightclubs are vibrant, with wide selections of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as music but what else can be featured in a night itinerary for tourists? The Natural History Museum sometimes holds fun nights themed ‘‘Night in the museum’’, and if every night there are a few such events across the city, Bulawayo would see more and more people coming out to have clean fun at night.
A new phenomenon of strip joints is on the rise in Zimbabwe and Bulawayo has its fair share. While that could be big with tourists, both domestic and international, it is an imported culture that does not resonate with our own. While the ladies of the night may be attractive to some tourists, they are a part of the vice mentioned earlier happening in dark corners. Sex tourism is big in some parts of the world but it is not in keeping with Africanness and particularly Zimbabwean-ness therefore cannot be encouraged.
Elsewhere, popular activities in night city tourism include night photography, night cycling, street walks under the cool and refreshing night breeze, monument visits, theatre, live music concerts, star gazing, culinary tourism and night market.
Bulawayo taxi drivers live up to the meaning of the phrase “burning midnight oil”. They are always there to provide service even in the “unholy hours”. This would be a plus for night tourism in the city, providing transport to those who want to move from one place to another or simply want to be taken back to their hotel after exploring the city on foot. Maybe it is time someone introduced a city tour bus that operates day and night like we see in other cities outside Zimbabwe. That would provide structured well-timed tours passing through the major attractions across the whole city even at night. This would then be complemented by the ever-present taxi guys to pick up tourists to their different accommodation facilities.
With Bulawayo being a future focused city, I hope (in fact, I prophesy) that we shall see more and more developments towards the full exploitation of night tourism opportunities. Bulawayo is uniquely positioned to lead the way in tourism product innovation. The city is celebrating 125 years of existence this year under the theme #Re-imagine Bulawayo.
– Phineas Chauke is a Bulawayo-based Tourism Consultant, Marketer and Tour Guide. Contact him on mobile +263776058523, email: [email protected] and twitter: @phinnychauke619
