The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has attended the Inaugural Bleisure Trade and Investment Summit in Mauritius, which on Monday and ends today (Wednesday).
Bleisure is a platform that combines business and leisure for business travellers to make the most of their trip by exploring the destination they are visiting.
In a statement, speaking on the sidelines of the conference, ZTA’s Executive Director for Special Projects, Mr Reason Machigere said the conference was a platform for them to network.
“The Summit is a platform for the ZTA to network and engage the Africa investment community and promote tourism investment opportunities in Zimbabwe.
“We’re here to engage with the African markets, with a view to exploring how best we can take advantage of the Inter-continental Free Trade Area to enhance internal trade and within African borders,” said Mr Machigere.
He said one of the issues they discussed was on access into various African destinations which was to ensure the promotion of tourism amongst Africans.
“We agreed on the need to stimulate intra-Africa travel. We also discussed the need to take a closer look at the issue of product diversification and how we are promoting it.”
ZTA said the conference has been highly successful in the sense that it has enabled linkages between leisure travel and business travel, while the two combined have the capacity to enhance and increase length of stay, in destinations, thereby contributing towards enhanced revenue generation.
ZTA is Zimbabwe’s tourism’s governing body formed as an act of parliament and operates under the mandate of the Tourism Act of Zimbabwe of 1996.
As a corporate body it is responsible for tourism promotion, planning, research and development and the enforcement of expected tourism standards.
